The Guild's Light Warrior
by Keyblade Guardian
Summary: After finishing the last mission Yen Sid gave him, Sora heads to the next one and arrives in Magnolia Town. He meets some people that ask him for help against the Heartless and now Sora must save this world with the help of a powerful guild. Timeline: After Dream Drop Distance (KH) and after the Edolas Arc (FT)
1. Magnolia Town

_**Magnolia Town**_

After finishing the last mission Yen Sid gave him, Sora was now returning to the Mysterious Tower in order to report back to his master. It looked like Xehanort was sending Heartless to some worlds to gain power for the upcoming battle against the Guardians of Light, so Sora was in charge of protecting the worlds from the Heartless.

When he was halfway to the tower, the Gummi Ship started to emit a sound; it was an incoming call from somewhere. Sora picked up the call and saw Riku on the screen.

"Hey Riku, what's up?" Sora said, happy to see a familiar face.

"I can't complain, how about you? Did you finish your mission in Death City?" Riku said.

Sora grinned. "Yup, the city is safe and clear of Heartless," he answered. "I'm heading to the tower now."

"That won't be necessary," Riku said and Sora looked at him confused. "Yen Sid told me to inform you about another world under the Heartless attack."

Sora sighed since he was hoping to see his friends again, but first things first. "Where and how bad is the invasion?" he said with a serious tone.

Riku smirked at the sudden change of attitude. "I'll mark the coordinates in your ship's GPS," he said. "About the Heartless, it's just an average invasion like the one you just finished."

"_That's not actually true, but I'd better keep that for myself_." Sora thought looking at the GPS, and then he turned to talk to Riku. "Before I hang up..."

"You know how the others are doing?" Riku successfully concluded and Sora nodded. "Well, I'm training Kairi and Lea with Yen Sid; you know they have to improve their skill as soon as possible, and King Mickey left with Donald and Goofy to protect other worlds from the Heartless and to assure that the Princesses of Heart are safe."

"Guess we're all busy, huh?" Sora commented and his friend chuckled.

"Well, it's normal; you know we must be ready for what is coming." Riku said. "But don't worry about us; you must focus on your task and remember that this time they don't know that you're coming so try to make a good impression."

"I always make a good impression," Sora said smiling and then he hung up.

While Sora was driving the Gummi Ship, the residents of the world he was going were fighting against the Heartless. In the middle of a square it could be seen two people surrounded by Heartless, one of them had spiky pink-colored hair and wore a white scarf and the other had spiky black-colored hair.

"These things are becoming increasingly annoying," the black-haired guy said.

"What's the matter Gray? You can't handle a few monsters at all?" said the pink-haired guy teasingly.

"Watch it, Natsu; I could take them without you being here!" Gray replied.

"Then let's see who destroys more monsters, _Karyū no Hōkō!_" Natsu said and started inhaling and then released a large burst of fire that destroyed a great amount of monsters.

"Fine by me, _Ice-Make: Lance!_" Gray said and then he used his hands to create multiple lances made of ice that impaled several Heartless.

The Heartless that were around them were destroyed, then more appeared but Natsu and Gray kept using their magic attacks to eliminate them and after half an hour fighting the Heartless gave up and retreated.

Both of them were tired because of the battle, since the Heartless appeared in their city, they've been fighting them to protect the inhabitants and the dark monsters never tired, so they have to battle them until they get bored and leave.

"Natsu, Gray!" shouted someone from above; it was a blue cat with wings that Natsu was glad to see.

"Happy!" Natsu greeted. "How are the others?"

"They already finished with their part of the city," Happy answered, "are you two alright?"

"Of course, these things don't stand a chance against us?" Natsu assured.

"Yeah, but it's getting more troublesome day by day," Gray commented, "if we don't find a way to get rid of these monsters, we'll have serious problems."

"You're right…" Natsu said, concerned about the safety of everyone. "Happy, did Master say something more about today?"

"No, just that after we finish we should go to sleep to regain strength for tomorrow," Happy told him.

"Then I'll leave, see you and be careful," Gray said as he walked away from them.

"You too, Gray!" Natsu said before leaving with Happy.

* * *

The next day, Sora arrived early morning in the city that was being invaded by Heartless, however it looked really peaceful but the Keybearer knew that looks can deceive.

There weren't many people in the streets, just the ones who wake up early to open their establishments. Sora was walking down the streets keeping an eye at his surroundings, since now that he was here it was only a matter of time before he got attacked.

Suddenly he heard battle noises far away, so he started running to see if it were the Heartless. He arrived to an area that had a waterway and at the end of the street he could see someone fighting the Heartless, it was a blonde girl and at her side she had what it looked to be a Minotaur with a big labrys and they looked drained because of the battle.

"I'm sorry Lucy-san, I can't go on anymore," the Minotaur said as he vanished. The girl called Lucy was now sat tiredly on the ground and cornered by the Heartless.

"What I'm going to do now…" she muttered and then a Heartless jumped to hurt her, she closed her eyes in anticipation, but nothing happened. After a second, she opened her eyes to know why she wasn't getting attacked and saw a boy fighting with the Heartless.

Lucy was impressed to see that the boy was defeating the monsters with ease, like if he was used to it, but what amazed her most was the weapon he was using to fight, it was a sword with the shape of a key.

After destroying the Heartless that was going to attack the blonde girl, Sora turned to fight the others and defeat them quickly. He started slashing all the Heartless that were now focusing on him. Every time a Heartless tried to get Sora from his back, he dodged quickly and counterattack and this way he managed to defeat all of them.

"_Those were a lot of Heartless for just one person,"_ Sora thought and then he turned to see the girl he just saved who was looking at him with an expression that was between confusion and amazement. Sora walked to the girl and gave her a warm smile.

"Are you okay?" he asked and offered her a hand.

Lucy didn't know why but she felt that he was a nice person, and besides he saved her after all. She returned the smile and took Sora's hand, but suddenly he was sent flying to the water by someone who just came at high speed and kicked him.

"Luckily we made it in time," the boy who just kicked Sora said.

"Lucy, are you okay?" said a blue cat that came alongside with the boy.

Lucy had her jaw dropped and then looked at the boy. "Natsu, why did you do that?"

Natsu crossed his arms and looked at her confused. "We heard that you were being attacked in front of your house, so we came here as fast as we could."

"And then Natsu saw that person near to you and thought he was attacking you, so he kicked him away," the cat continued.

Lucy sighed. "Actually, the boy who you just kicked saved me from the dark monsters," she said. "They were the ones who attacked me."

Natsu gulped and started to feel guilty for what he just did.

"Natsu, maybe you shouldn't have done that," the cat said. Suddenly Sora climbed the wall to get out of the water; he was all soaked and still a little groggy from the kick.

"What was that for?" Sora said to Natsu who looked at him embarrassed.

"Please forgive him; he thought you were attacking me so he acted without thinking," Lucy said to the Keybearer.

Sora thought for a moment and decided to forget what just happened. "Well, if it was a misunderstanding, then don't worry about it."

Natsu smiled at the boy. "Thanks! And thank you for saving Lucy from the monsters. I'm Natsu and this is Happy," he said pointing to the flying cat that landed on his head.

"And I'm Lucy, thanks you for the rescue…uh…" Lucy said trying to get the boy's name.

"My name is Sora, nice to meet you," he said.

"You must be very strong if you could defeat all the monsters on your own," Happy said.

Lucy nodded. "I was lucky that he was nearby, he was amazing when he was fighting. Have you fought against them before?"

"Yeah, I've got experience with the Heartless," Sora said and the other three looked at him puzzled.

"Heartless? Is that how they are called?" Lucy asked.

"Yeah, I've been fighting these monsters for almost two years; they are really a problem when they focus on a particular place," Sora replied.

"Why are we going to do then?" Happy said concerned looking at Natsu.

Natsu's eyes were closed, he had a pensive face, like if he was mulling over something, and then he opened his eyes. "Hey, why don't we take him to the guild? If he knows how to fight the Heartless, then he could be the answer to this problem."

"That's a good idea, if you're willing to help us Sora," Lucy said looking at the Keybearer.

"Of course, I'll lend you a hand," he replied grinning. "_That's why I am here after all."_

"Alright, let's go to the guild!" Natsu cheered raising a fist to the air and then started running.

"Aye, sir!" exclaimed Happy while he followed Natsu.

Sora laughed at the two and looked at Lucy. "Are they always like this?"

"You could say that," Lucy said. "Come on, I'll show you the way."


	2. Fairy Tail

_**Fairy Tail**_

After introducing themselves, Natsu, Lucy and Happy led Sora to their guild. The Celestial Mage offered to guide Sora, since Natsu and Happy were too excited to notice that he didn't know where the guild was. When they arrived, Sora was amazed at the large, two-story high building that he was watching, although it was the first guild he has ever seen, he thought it was really impressive.

Sora looked up and saw the sign at the entrance. "Fairy Tail…" he read and then he turned to Lucy, "That's the name of your guild?"

"That's right," Lucy replied. "You're not from Fiore, are you? I mean, everyone who is from here knows Fairy Tail."

"You're right, I'm not from here," Sora said. He was nervous, because he didn't know what to say if she asked where he was from, but he was lucky that Lucy didn't ask about it.

The two crossed the first entrance and Sora started to examine his surroundings, there was an outdoor Café where some people were having a break and a Souvenir shop outside the building. Natsu and Happy were waiting them in front of the entrance of the guild's building.

"About time, let's go inside!" Natsu exclaimed. The group went inside and when Natsu entered, a man wearing just his underwear approached him.

"Hey Natsu, where have you been?" he said. "We have to finish what we were arguing before you left."

"Gladly, you perverted freak!" Natsu said as he and the other man stared fiercely at each other. Sora found this amusing because it remembered about when Riku and he got into friendly fights, although these two looked like they were going a little too far.

"Why are they fighting this time?" Lucy asked the blue cat next to her.

"Because Gray said that he defeated more Heartless than Natsu yesterday, but Natsu affirms that he's the one who destroyed more," Happy explained.

"Those two are always full of energy in the morning, right?" said someone. Sora turned his gaze and saw a pretty woman with white hair and wearing an ankle-length maroon dress with a pleated skirt.

"Mira, do you know where is Master?" Lucy asked her.

The woman nodded. "Master went to a meeting with the other guild masters," she answered. "I think they're going to talk about the missions we're getting lately."

"What kind of missions?" Happy asked with curiosity.

"Some people are sending us requests to eliminate those horrible monsters that appeared recently," she replied. "It looks that they started to attack other places."

"What about the other guilds?" Lucy asked. "Are they getting the same requests?"

"I think so, they're doing their best," Mirajane replied. "I hope we can make them disappear soon."

As they talked, Natsu and Gray were having a very aggressive argument that was destroying some tables and chairs, and it seems that some members of the guild also joined the fight. Sora was looking at them astonished and Lucy noticed.

"Don't worry, things like this are normal around here," she told him, although that didn't reassure the Keybearer very much.

"By the way Lucy," Mirajane said looking at the Keybearer, "who is this cute boy that accompanies you, a new recruit?"

Sora blushed slightly at her remark, but what called his attention the most was the "new recruit" thing, did they want him to join the guild?

"Oh, his name is Sora," Lucy replied. "Before we came here, I got attacked by those monsters, but I was lucky that he was near and saved me."

"My name is Mirajane, nice to meet you Sora," she said giving the spiky boy a warm smile. "And thank you for saving Lucy; we're in debt with you."

"Oh it was nothing," Sora said, "I'm always willing to help if someone needs it."

"It seems that he has experience with the Heartless, the monsters that are attacking Fiore," Lucy explained, "so he's going to lend us a hand to eliminate them."

"That's great! You should talk with Master, I'm sure he'll be happy to know that you're going to help us," Mirajane said glad that Sora was offering help.

Meanwhile the rest of the guild kept fighting and breaking the interior of the guild. Sora thought if they could afford to repair all this but Lucy said that these fights were usual so maybe they already got that covered. He watched how the guild's members, who were fighting used magic, so he assumed that this was a guild for people who can use magic.

"They are doing it again? One of these days the whole building will collapse," said someone who was behind Lucy and the others. Sora turned to see who it was and saw a cat that looked like Happy, but this one was female and had white fur and next to her there was a little girl with blue hair.

"Carla!" Happy said cheerfully and went to hug the cat, but she dodged him and Happy hit the wall.

"Good morning Wendy and Carla, are you alright?" Mirajane asked the two people who just entered.

"We're fine Mira-san, the way here was very quiet," answered the bluenette. When she said that, more chairs flying across the room, as well as some Mages.

"You can't say that here…" Lucy muttered.

After two minutes of what can be called "an average day in Fairy Tail", another person entered, this time it was a redhead woman wearing armor. All the people fighting stopped immediately after she showed up.

Natsu and the man in underwear now were looking scared at the redhead, like if they just saw some kind of monster.

"Natsu, Gray! Did you two start another fight?" she asked with a really scary face.

"N-no Erza, we're just talking like good friends, right Natsu?" Gray said scared.

"Aye…" Natsu replied.

Sora was amazed how she could make the entire guild stop fighting just with her presence; it reminded him how Kairi could stop fights in their home with just her glare.

"We've already enough troubles, so don't waste your time in silly fights," Erza said. "By the way, I heard that you two caused damage to the city when you were in your patrol shift yesterday."

"That's Natsu's fault, it was his idea," Gray said pointing at Natsu, but he wasn't there, now he was hiding behind Sora.

"Sora, use your magic and protect me from her, please," Natsu pleaded.

"Don't you think you're exaggerating a little bit?" said Sora raising an eyebrow.

Erza walked over to where they were and looked closely at Sora who was getting a bit nervous because of her staring at him.

"I don't recall seeing you in the guild before. What's your name?" she asked the spiky boy.

"I-I'm Sora," he replied.

"If you came here to make a request, you'll have to wait," Erza said. "We're pretty busy lately."

"Actually he's here for that Erza," Mirajane commented.

"Oh, you know him?" Erza asked her.

"It seems that he's really good at fighting the dark creatures," she replied. "He even saved Lucy, so I think he'll be really helpful."

"Did you get attacked?! Are you injured?" Erza asked worried at Lucy grabbing her shoulders and looking at her to see if she had any wounds.

"Don't worry Erza, I'm unharmed," Lucy assured her.

Then Erza turned to Sora again, this time she stared at him with a mixed expression of guilt or regret, but it was still scary to the Keyblade wielder.

"I'm sorry if I was a bit rude before I had a lot in my mind lately," Erza said. "Please, forgive me."

"Oh don't worry about that, I'm sure all of you have been really busy with all the Heartless prowling around here," Sora said.

Erza thanked the spiky boy for understanding her, then the guild's members started to clean up the mess Gray and Natsu started. Some of the Mages outside entered to lend a hand; Sora noticed that Lucy was now talking with a girl with short blue hair who was as tall as him and he could hear the word "Heartless" in the conversation so maybe she was telling her about what happened before.

Sora also helped with the cleaning and repairing. He took a look at the guild's main floor and a saw the "Request Board".

"_Looks like the ones in Shibusen, although these missions have money as reward,_" he thought.

After a few minutes, all was tidied up and the people returned to what they were doing. The girl who was talking with Lucy now was reading a huge book with her, like if they were doing some kind of research, Natsu was being scolded by Erza because of the damage he did to the city yesterday. Gray managed to avoid Erza and went to introduce himself to the new boy.

"Hey," he said to call Sora's attention, "I heard you saved Lucy before, I thought I should thank you for the favor. The name is Gray Fullbuster."

"I'm Sora," said the Keybearer, "and no need to thank me, I'm always glad to lend a hand."

The man smirked at his answer; he was starting to like this boy. "So, are you from any guild?"

"Not really, I'm new in the city actually," Sora replied. "I came here to help with those monsters and Lucy brought me here after I helped her. Mirajane told me to talk with the Master of the guild so I'm waiting for him."

"I don't know if we've a plan against them, but she's right, you should talk with Master if you want to help us," Gray said.

"Gray…" said someone with a serious tone. The black-haired man turned to see that it was Erza the one who said his name and she looked a little upset.

"I hope you weren't thinking of escaping," Erza said.

"O-of course not," Gray stuttered, "I'm just talking with Sora."

Ezra's face changed from serious to a more relaxed one. "Now that you say it, I think I didn't properly introduce myself, I'm Erza Scarlet."

"Nice to meet you, Erza," Sora replied.

Erza looked at Sora like if she was studying him and then she spoke. "Before coming to the guild I heard some people talking," she said. "It seems that they saw a boy with spiky brown hair and black clothes fighting a lot of those dark creatures without any effort. I suppose that it was you."

"It could be," Sora said, "I've got to say that they were a lot for just one person, no wonder Lucy was being overwhelmed by them."

"They are really a pain," Gray commented, "it doesn't matter how many we defeat, they keep appearing."

While Sora was talking with the two Mages, two more people entered the guild, a man with long spiky black hair who was being followed by a third cat who had black fur and another man was much shorter and older.

The cat flew to where the other two were and greeted them.

"Hello Happy and Carla," he said.

"Hello Lily," Happy replied, "how was the trip?"

"Quiet, until we got attacked by a great amount of monsters," the cat answered, "but it wasn't a problem, we managed to fight and make them leave."

The elder man walked to Mirajane and asked her if something happened while he was at the meeting, the woman told him that everything was fine and she also mentioned that Sora helped Lucy when she was in trouble. Makarov asked where the boy was and Mirajane pointed at the table where Erza, Gray and he were talking.

As Makarov approached the three, Erza noticed him. "Master, you're back," she said, "how was the meeting?"

"We'll talk about when everyone is here," he answered and then looked at Sora, "first I want to talk with him."

Sora stood up and looked at the man's eyes, his gaze was intense and the Keyblade wielder could tell that he was really powerful. After a few seconds of suspense, Makarov smiled at the boy.

"Now, now, relax. I'm not going to scold you or something," he said. "Mirajane told me what you did and I wanted to show my gratefulness."

Sora was about to say something, but he was interrupted by the girl with light blue hair who was talking with Lucy before.

"Master!" she exclaimed.

"What's it, Levy?" Makarov asked.

"I think you should take a look at this," she said and then showed the book to him. Now most of the guild's members were gathered around the book. The master started to read the book, Sora wasn't near it, but he could see that there were pictures in it, pictures of Heartless to be more specific.

"So these creatures are Heartless…" Makarov muttered.

"Did you know about them, Master?" Erza asked. She was curious to know more about this new threat.

"I heard a lot about them," he replied, "but I've never seen one with my own eyes until now."

"According to this," Lucy began, "they're attracted by the darkness in people's heart and they turn them into a new Heartless."

"They also attack people who have a strong light in their hearts, they fear people like this, so they try to eliminate them," Levy added.

"Light and darkness…" Gray mused. "Sounds like Nirvana."

"Maybe that thing could have attracted them to Fiore," Erza deduced. "Is there anything else?"

Levy nodded and continued. "It looks like the main goal of the Heartless are to immerse the worlds into the darkness. They look for the "heart" of the world and when they find it, it's over…"

The atmosphere was now really gloomy, no one could believe that sooner or later their home was going to be destroyed. Sora was going to tell them about why he's here, but the little girl with dark-blue hair spoke first.

"It's…uh…" she found difficult to speak after what Levy read but she managed to do it. "Is there any way to stop them? There must be something we can do."

"Wendy is right," Natsu said, more serious than he usually looked, "we can't remain with our arms crossed."

"There's something that can stop them, but none of us has it," Makarov commented. "Does that book say something about Keyblades?"

Levy started to flip the book's pages really fast, the rest of them looked at their master confused and Erza looked surprised.

"Keyblade?" she asked. "Are you talking about the legendary sword?"

"Do you know what is it?" Makarov said. "Not many people know about the Keyblade, mostly because the number of people who can wield that sword decreased significantly."

"I always thought it was only a legend, like a fairy tale for kids," Erza said.

"Here it is," Levy said. "The only thing that can stop the Heartless is the Keyblade, a really powerful sword who chose the person that can wield it. If a world is being invaded by Heartless, a Keyblade wielder can save it by closing the path to the world's heart."

"Well, the only thing we have to do is find one of these guys and ask for help," Gray said.

"That's easier said than done," Lucy said. "As the book say, Keyblade wielders are a rarity nowadays. The chances of finding one of them are really low."

"The only thing we can do, it's to fight them and try to decrease its number," Makarov said. "At the meeting we talked about it and we agreed that the guilds are going to help each other to defeat the Heartless."

"So we're going to form an alliance like we did against Oracion Seis," Erza said and Makarov nodded.

"If anyone sees a mission about Heartless, take it and if by any chance you find members of another guild, remember that now we have a common enemy," the master said addressing the entire guild.

Natsu took a look at the book, he wanted to know if there were any pictures of Keyblades, this way he will be able to recognize it if he sees one, Lucy thought the same and looked for pictures and fortunately she found them.

"These swords sure look like keys," Natsu said in awe. Lucy, on the other hand, looked at the images with a really pensive look, like if she was trying to remember something. Happy flew to Natsu's head to look at the book too.

"Maybe they can summon spirits, like Lucy does," Happy said.

"Yeah, with that size, I'm sure they can summon huge monsters," said the pink-haired boy. "What do you think Lucy?"

Lucy was lost in her thoughts so he didn't hear him. She was watching the pictures and after turning some pages, she found what she was looking for, the picture of a particular Keyblade that had a yellow handheld and a silver colored blade. The Celestial Mage knew that she had seen this kind of weapon before and now she confirmed it, the boy who saved her was a Keyblade wielder. She looked at Sora who was now drinking a glass of water that Mirajane offered him and then Natsu started to walk toward him.

"Hey," Natsu said and Lucy looked at him, "I'm going to ask Sora if he knows about the Keyblade, maybe he knows someone who can use it."

"Wait, Natsu," Lucy said and the boy stopped and looked at her quizzically, she didn't know what to say to Natsu and she wasn't sure how to ask Sora about it, maybe he wanted to keep that as a secret.

While Lucy thought how to ask Sora about the sword he used, the Keybearer was looking at a map which he asked Mirajane for. It was a map of the whole kingdom, the world was actually really big, but Sora thought that if the Heartless were only attacking Fiore, then the Keyhole must be around but, unluckily for him, the kingdom was huge.

"_This is going to take a while…_" he thought, then he looked at Makarov. "_I should better talk with him._"

"Umm, excuse me," said someone and Sora turned his head and saw the little girl and the white cat that entered the guild after he arrived. "Sora-san, right?"

The boy was surprised that she used that suffix, he didn't like that people were so formal toward him, but the girl looked a little nervous so he decided to not say anything about it.

"That's right," he answered, "and you're Wendy if I'm not mistaken."

The girl nodded. "Natsu-san told me about you, and I thought that I should introduce myself."

"Don't be so nervous Wendy, you're not talking with a monster," Carla said, and then she looked at Sora. "I'm Carla, nice to meet you. I heard that you were going to help us with the Heartless, although after Levy read that book, it seems that our chances of success are null."

Sora stood up and started to walk toward Master Makarov. "Don't worry," he said trying to reassure them, "I'm the person you need right now."

Wendy and Carla looked at him puzzled; they decided to follow him to see what he has planned.

Lucy and Natsu were talking as Wendy and Carla introduce themselves to Sora, she told him about how Sora fought the Heartless that attacked her, Natsu at first was dumbfounded but suddenly he had a wide grin on his face.

"That's amazing!" he exclaimed. "We must ask him to join us in the missions. Besides, if he wanted to keep that as a secret, then he wouldn't have come with you to the guild, right?"

"Maybe you're right…" Lucy said. "Okay, let's talk with him."

The two Mages walked to where Sora was; the brown-haired boy was now approaching the master of the guild.

"Excuse me," Sora said to Makarov and the elder man turned to see the Keybearer.

"Ah, Sora," he began, "is there anything you need?"

"I wanted to talk about the Heartless," Sora answered.

"Oh yes, you wanted to help us to fight them, but let me ask you something first," Makarov stated. "Are you a Mage?"

Sora was surprised at the question, it was the first time someone asked that to him and he didn't know how to answer, he can use magic but something told him that it was different here.

"Well," he began, "yeah, I can use magic, but my method of fighting is with a sword."

"Oh, then you're like Erza," Gray said.

"Actually I use-" Sora said and suddenly Natsu finished his sentence.

"A Keyblade?" he finished.

"Natsu, you better don't joke about that," Erza said with a stern face.

"Actually he's right," Sora told her. It looks like most of the guild heard what Sora said and they looked at him speechless. No one said anything, so Sora started to feel awkward and decided to draw his Keyblade. The Mages couldn't believe what they were looking at; they had a Keyblade wielder in front of them.

"It could be that you are…" Gray said still amazed.

"…a Keyblade wielder?" Erza continued and Sora nodded.

Makarov looked at Sora with a serious face. "Sora, I hope that your offer of help is still valid. We need you, so please, help us with this threat."

"Of course, that's why I came here after all," Sora replied and suddenly the people in the guild cheered, now their home wasn't going to be destroyed with Sora helping them. Most of them walked toward Sora to thank him for his help, Natsu high-fived him and Erza hugged him with one arm, although she overdid it and Sora's head hit her armor a bit too hard.

"Now there's something more I wanted to tell you, it's more like an offer actually," Makarov told Sora. "Before you told us about your Keyblade I was going to ask you if you wanted to be a member of the guild, Fairy Tail is always open to everyone, so I thought that maybe you wanted to join us."

Sora didn't expect that offer, but it sounded great. He looked at the people around him and he felt like if they were a family and he wouldn't mind being part of it, so he decided to accept the offer.

"Alright, I accept," Sora said. Mirajane approached Sora and ask him where he wanted the mark of the guild, he told her to put it in his left hand as he removed his glove.

"Here you go, now you're a Fairy Tail's member, welcome to the guild," Mirajane said happily.

"This is going to be great," Natsu said as he leaned his arm on Sora's shoulder. "I'll take you on a mission so you see how we do it."

"I don't think that you should be the one teaching him," Gray said, "you'll end up destroying another city."

"Oh, so you think you can do it better, Ice-pervert?" Natsu said angrily.

"Anytime, Fire-idiot," Gray replied and then they started to fight again, destroying what they just cleaned up. Sora was starting to like this world and it was only the first day.


	3. A Mission for Sora

_**A Mission for Sora**_

Sora's proof of being a Keyblade wielder was enough for all the guild's members to start celebrating that their home wasn't going to get destroyed. He hasn't done anything yet, but it looks that everyone has put their hope in him. The Keybearer started to make acquaintance with other members, there was a tall woman with long brown hair called Cana and she showed too friendly toward Sora, maybe because she was drunk and not just a bit since she even offered Sora a drink.

After her, there was another woman who approached Sora. She looked like Mirajane, but younger and with shorter hair. When she was close enough to him, she tapped on Sora's shoulder to get his attention.

"Hello, Mr. Keyblade wielder," she joked. "I assumed that I also had to introduce myself to our hero, so here I am. My name's Lisanna."

Sora couldn't help but smile at the bantering. "Nice to meet you, but I prefer to be called just Sora, Miss Lisanna."

The two laughed together at their jokes, Sora liked how all the people here were so friendly and welcoming, although maybe someone wasn't so happy that he was so kind with the white-haired girl, since right after laughing with Lisanna a muscular man, whose height towered over the Keybearer, put his arm around Sora's shoulder and looked at him with a very scary and intimidating face.

"Hey, if you want to go out with my little sister, you will have to fight me and proof that you're a man!" he said with an intense voice.

Sora waved his hands defensively. "Uh, I think you got the wrong idea."

"Elf-nii-chan! Don't be rude to him," Lisanna said to her brother.

On the other side of the guild, Lucy watched how Sora got along with everyone, she was happy that he accepted to join to Fairy Tail and they were really lucky to have him here too, it's like he appeared when he is most needed. Also one thing that especially caught her interest was his sword, according to Master Makarov, it was a legendary weapon that chooses the person who can wield it, and she wondered why would it choose someone this young, not that she underestimated him since she was the only one around who has seen him in action, but she wanted to know more about it.

While Lucy thought about the Keyblade, she noticed that Natsu was looking at the Request Board with a thoughtful expression so she decided to ask him what he was looking for.

"Hey Natsu," she began, "are you looking for a special mission?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I want to take Sora on a mission so he can get the hang of it so I don't want to pick a difficult one."

"That's nice from you Natsu, but I think that he can defend himself pretty well," Lucy told him but then looked at him suspicious. "But don't take an S-Class mission like you did before."

"How did you…" Natsu said.

"Were you going to do it?!" Lucy asked in disbelief.

Natsu laughed. "Just kidding Lucy," he said and then looked at the board again. "Maybe I should take one of the new missions; I want to see how he fights against the Heartless."

Happy heard Natsu and flew where he was. "Natsu, take a mission with a high reward," he said. "With his help, I'm sure we can get a lot of Jewels easily."

In that moment, Lucy's eyes sparkled. She realized that with Sora's help they could accomplish the new missions with ease and earn a lot of money. She started to laugh slightly but Happy could hear her.

"Lucy, you're scary…" Happy said and she stopped laughing.

"Natsu, did you choose a mission already?" asked Erza who walked near the Request Board to see if Natsu decided.

"Are you coming with us Erza?" Natsu asked her.

"Of course," she replied as if it was obvious, "I must take care of the Keyblade wielder, I can't let anything bad happen to him, although if the legend it's true, then he shouldn't have problems against the Heartless."

"Believe me, he makes the cut perfectly," Lucy affirmed.

"I do," she said, "but I also asked Gray and Wendy to come with us anyway, this way we can take a more difficult mission, so feel free to take a big one Natsu."

"What about this one," he said showing a paper to the redhead.

Erza took a look at it while Lucy peeked to see how the mission was.

"The Mayor of Freesia Town asks our guild for help to destroy the dark creatures that appeared recently, there's going to be a festival soon and he doesn't want to cancel it because of the monsters," Erza read.

"Five hundred thousand Jewels?!" Lucy read incredulous. "That's a lot of money."

"I guess the Mayor is really desperate for help," Erza deduced.

Happy approached Natsu and started whispering something in his ear. "Hey Natsu, didn't you destroy an old historic church the last time we were there?"

Natsu crossed his arms and thought for a moment. "Oh yeah, let's not say anything about it or Erza will get angry."

"Alright, it's settled, we'll take this mission," Lucy said cheerfully, obviously because of the high reward, but then she realized that the person they needed was missing. "Hey, where is Sora? I thought he was talking with Lisanna and Elfman."

"I saw Master taking him to another room," Erza answered her. "Maybe he wants to tell the Keybearer about how this world works."

"Well, he said he can use magic, so I think he'll be fine," Natsu said nonchalantly.

As Erza said, Sora was now with Master Makarov in another room, the old master asked Sora to accompany him because he wanted to have a private talk with him. The elder was now looking through a window and Sora was waiting for him to speak. After a minute, Makarov turned to look at Sora's eyes, he had an intense stare and Sora could tell that despite Makarov friendly appearance, he also could be very serious and imposing.

"Keyblade wielder Sora…" Makarov mused. "Also known as the Keyblade's Chosen One. You're the boy who is under Yen Sid's tutelage and the one who has saved the worlds two times in a row."

Sora looked at the master with wide eyes, it turned out that he knew who he was after all and this made Sora wonder why he didn't say anything about it before.

"In case you're wondering," began the master, "yes, I knew who you were the moment you said that you were a Keyblade wielder. I've heard a lot of things about you, and Yen Sid also told me about you, a brilliant boy but a little brash."

Sora laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, that sounds like him," he said. "Master, if you don't mind telling me, I'd like to know why you didn't tell the others about…"

"Yes, I was going to tell you, be patient," he replied. "First of all, you know about the meddling rule, right?"

"Yeah, we can't get involved in other worlds' affairs," Sora said.

"Correct," Makarov said. "Just to let you know Sora, I don't mind if they know about other worlds, some of them have been already in another world so this isn't something new for them, but there's a favor I need to ask you though."

"Alright, what is it?" asked Sora.

"I know that you're having troubles with the man by the name of Xehanort," Makarov said. "I know him and I also know what he's capable of, so I ask you to not tell the other members of Fairy Tail about that man and his plot, I know that they'd want to help you and I don't think they should interfere."

Sora nodded in agreement. "Don't worry, I wasn't planning on telling them about him, it's something that I must take care of and I don't want other people to get involved with him."

"I appreciate your understanding," the master thanked. "Now, about our world, I suppose you already know how things work around here."

"Well, I can tell that in this world magic is something really important, at least that's what I think," Sora said.

"It's true, magic it's really important in this world, although not everyone can use it and that's why there are guilds around, so people can ask the Mages for help," Makarov explained. "I think you could try and learn some new magic while you're here, it never hurts to learn something new."

"You're right, thanks for the explanation Master," Sora said gratefully. "Before I go, I'd like to ask you something, if that's alright."

"Of course boy, go ahead," the elder said.

"Why did you ask me to join the guild before?" Sora asked. "I mean, is there any special reason? You knew that I was a Keyblade wielder, so you know that I won't be here forever."

"It doesn't matter if you're not here, you will be always part of our family wherever you are. You'll carry the mark of the guild in your trips, this way you won't forget that besides being a Keybearer, you're also a Fairy Tail's Mage."

Sora was touched by Makarov words, he truly deserved the title of master and this make Sora wonder if he could be like him when he becomes one.

"Besides," Makarov continued, "you're the first Keyblade wielder in this world; can you imagine how jealous the other guilds are going to be when they find out that Fairy Tail is the first guild with a Keyblade wielder?"

Makarov said the last part with mischievously and caused Sora to sweat-drop and made him think that maybe his new master wasn't very serious at all, although that wasn't bad at all.

* * *

Sora was now in a train en route to Freesia Town, after finishing his talk with Master Makarov, he saw Natsu calling him, the Mage wanted to take him on a mission and Sora was happy to oblige. Happy was in the train too, although that was obvious since Natsu and he were inseparable, Lucy was also here and she was mumbling something about a reward, Gray was coming too and Natsu wasn't very happy about the idea, Wendy and Carla were also on the train and Sora wondered what kind of magic she used. Lastly there was Erza, who stood to Sora's side like a bodyguard, Sora didn't mind but he wanted to know why she was so overprotective of him.

The spiky boy now has his mind busy thinking about what Makarov told him. "_I hope that the topic of Xehanort doesn't come out while I'm here since, unfortunately, Maka and the others in Death City know about him and his damned plan. Well, they will be fine so I'd better stop thinking about it._"

Sora sighed and Erza noticed. "Are you okay? You have been really quiet since we sat."

"I'm fine, don't worry," Sora said smiling at her. "I think he's the one who is feeling bad."

Sora was referring to Natsu who looked really sick at the moment; Happy told him that he suffered from motion sickness because he was a Dragon Slayer.

"Dragon Slayer?" Sora asked puzzled. "Is that some kind of Mage?"

"Indeed, Dragon Slayers are a unique type of people who utilize a form of Lost Magic, Dragon Slayer Magic. They are taught by dragons and just like them, they are masters of their own element and unfortunately for them, it seems that they suffer from motion sickness." Erza explained.

"So, I guess that Natsu is the Fire Dragon Slayer since I saw him spitting fire when he was fighting in the guild," Sora deduced and Erza nodded.

"And Wendy is the Sky Dragon Slayer." Happy added. Sora didn't expect that she was a Dragon Slayer so he was speechless when the blue cat said that.

"Are you a Dragon Slayer too? That's amazing," he complimented the girl.

Wendy blushed and laughed shyly. "Thank you Sora-san, but I've got still to learn a lot."

"Wait," Sora began, "how is that you aren't dizzy like Natsu?"

"Actually I don't know, maybe it's because my healing powers," she said.

Sora turned to the black-haired man. "What about you Gray, what kind of Mage are you?"

Gray smiled. "Ice-Make Mage," he said and put his right fist in his left palm and a blue magic circle appeared. After a second he had in his hand a copy of Sora's crown that was made of ice."

"Fire and Ice…" Sora muttered and then let out a laugh. "I can see why you and Natsu are rivals."

"Yeah, we've been like this since we were kids," Gray said. "And Erza was always there to put us in our place."

"Someone had to do it so you won't get in trouble, besides that hasn't changed with the time," Erza said. The woman started to look at Sora nervous and after some thinking she spoke. "Keybl-I mean, Sora…I wondered if I could ask you something?"

"Sure, what is it?" he said.

The knight was twirling her fingers; it looks like she found it difficult to say what she wanted to ask. Happy flew near her and put his paws on his mouth to hold his laugh.

"Erza, you look like a schoolgirl," the cat said and half a second after he was hit by Erza and smashed against the window. Sora sweat-dropped, he wondered why Happy did that if he knew that Erza was going to react like that.

"Umm, could you lend me your Keyblade for a moment?" she asked him. "Since I was little I always wanted to see one and now that I know they are real, I'd be happy if you let me grab it for a second."

Sora had to admit that she looked really cute, it was like looking at an older Kairi and he couldn't say no to that face so he summoned his Keyblade and handed it to her.

Erza looked marveled at the sword, like a child who got a new toy, even Lucy was looking at the Keyblade with interest. Unfortunately for the two female Mages, the Keyblade wanted to return to his official wielder and teleported to Sora's hand.

"Sorry, people who aren't Keyblade wielders only can wield it for a few seconds," Sora said.

"Well, that's pretty useful," Gray commented. "Normally people who use swords would be in trouble if they are disarmed, but I see that's not your case."

"If you allow me the question," Carla began looking at Sora, "How much have you been doing this?"

"Fighting the Heartless?" Sora asked and she nodded. "A year and a half, more or less, since I was chosen by the Keyblade. It's the only thing I've been doing."

"That sounds rough," Wendy said.

"Yeah, it was at the beginning, but I get used to it and now it feels like routine," Sora told her. "Besides, I travel a lot and meet a lot of people and that's something I always liked."

The train stopped right after Sora's last sentence and Gray looked through the window and saw that they arrived in Freesia Town. The group got out of the train; Erza had to carry Natsu since he couldn't even move because of the sickness.

"Woah, look at this!" Lucy said amazed. "This town is beautiful."

"It's sure looks lively with all these people around," Carla said. "Weren't they being attacked by Heartless?"

"It seems that this town won't give up, even if they are being invaded," Erza said. "We will have to do our best and don't disappoint them. Let's go to the town-hall."

Natsu and Happy approached the group after leaving for a few minutes; nobody noticed their absence until they came back. They had a lot of food in their hands and mouths.

"Where did you two get that food?" Lucy asked suspecting that they probably took it without permission.

"There's a lot of food on some tables over there. I suppose it's for the festival, but there was a lot so I don't think they would mind if we took some," Natsu answered.

"Aye, you want some Lucy?" Happy asked. "It's delicious."

"No thanks…." Lucy said. "_These two are going to get in trouble_."

The team crossed the city, looking how all the residents were preparing the festival, there were a lot of kids running down the streets which made Sora worry a little, he hoped that they could stop the Heartless before they hurt anyone. They arrived at the town-hall, which was in the middle of the town and the Mayor was waiting for them in his office a bit nervous but he was glad that a guild was now in his town.

"Ah, Fairy Tail, I'm so glad to see that you accepted the request," the Mayor said.

"We are glad to be of help," Erza said. "Could you please explain us about what we have to do?"

"Of course," the Mayor began, "It's basically an extermination request, as you know there's going to be a festival soon and the people are already preparing it. However those dark creatures have been seen in the proximities and I'm afraid that they will attack the citizens."

"We just have to kick their asses so they leave the town alone, right?" Natsu said smirking.

"Yes, but please be more careful this time Mr. Dragneel, we don't want you to destroy another important building again," said the Mayor and Sora sweat-dropped.

"_It seems that he's a little reckless_," Sora thought.

"Don't worry sir; I'll keep an eye on him," Erza assured.

"Okay then, I'll leave my town in your hands. Thank you for your help." said the man as he bowed to the group as they left the room.

"So…how are we going to do it?" Lucy asked.

"We better split up to cover more ground," Erza said. "We'll go in pairs so no one is alone if the Heartless appear. Natsu, you will come with me so I can be sure that you don't destroy anything."

"Fine…" Natsu pouted.

"Gray, Wendy and Carla will be the second group," she continued. "Try to stay with your clothes on, Gray."

"Hey!" Gray protested.

"Lucy," Erza addressed the blonde. "Take care of Sora, okay?"

"Alright!" said Lucy saluting Erza. "_Although I don't think that's going to be necessary._"

"And Sora," said the knight, "I'm counting on you."

Sora nodded and gave her thumbs up. "Leave it to me."

The team was divided into three groups and each went down a different path. Lucy thought that this was a good moment to get to know more about Sora.

"Say, Sora, how are you liking this world so far?" she asked. "I suppose that when you told me that you weren't from here, you meant that you were from another world."

Sora gulped, she was a clever girl. "Yeah, you're right, I'm not from this world," he said. "Answering your question, my world is really big, but I live on a small part of it, a small island in the middle of the ocean. I've got to say that this one is much more interesting."

"You live on an island?" Lucy asked with glee. "I bet it's really beautiful and cozy."

"That's true, I wouldn't change it for anything," said Sora smiling at the Mage. "Now that I think about it, I didn't get to know what kind of Mage are you."

"Me? I'm a Celestial Mage," Lucy replied proudly. "I can summon Spirits by opening their Gates with these keys."

Sora peered at the keys. "There are some keys that are golden, are they special?"

"Yes, they are the Zodiac Keys; these can open the Gates of the most powerful Spirits," Lucy said and suddenly one of her keys shone and a man who was wearing a dark suit and had a hairstyle slightly similar to Sora's appeared.

"Loke?" Lucy asked surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello, my dear Lucy," the man called Loke said. "Don't worry, I didn't appear because something bad is happening, I just wanted to show my respects to him."

Sora and Lucy looked at Loke confused because they didn't know what he meant by that. He said that he wanted to show his respects to Sora, but it was the first time Sora and him have seen each other.

"I've heard a lot of good things about you, Master Sora," Loke said. "It's an honor to meet you finally."

"Nice to meet you too, Loke," Sora said, "but I am not a master or anything yet, besides I prefer being called just by my name."

"Aren't you the Keyblade's Chosen One of the legend, the one who saved the worlds from the darkness?" Loke asked.

Sora nodded, he was surprised that Loke knew all those things about him.

"Loke, how do you know all that?" Lucy asked curious.

"Sora is a well-known and respected person in the Celestial Spirit World and as the leader of the Zodiac Spirits I wanted to be the first to meet him in person," Loke replied.

"Wow, I didn't know you were so famous Sora," Lucy said to the spiky boy.

"Me neither," Sora said.

"Well, I'll be going by now, take care of Lucy for me, Sora," Loke said and then looked at Lucy. "Remember to summon the others; I'm sure they will be happy to know him too."

Loke started to vanish and before completely disappearing, he winked at Lucy. Sora noticed that and looked at the girl.

"Is he your boyfriend?" he asked and Lucy blushed and shook her head.

"No, of course not, he just likes to flirt with me a lot," she said awkwardly.

The two continued their patrolling but they didn't encounter any Heartless, much to Sora's surprise. Lucy and he ended up meeting with the other groups again.

"Everything was very peaceful during our route," Erza said. "I take that yours were like that too."

"Yup, there weren't Heartless in sight," Gray said.

"Man, this is boring; I hoped that a lot of Heartless showed up," Natsu complained.

"Well, this way is better," Wendy said. "The people of Freesia Town won't be in danger if there aren't Heartless around."

"Maybe the Mayor was just paranoid," Gray said. "I'm sure the Heartless won't even appear."

"You shouldn't have said that, Gray," said Sora. He knew what was going to happen now.

"Why?" the Ice-Make Mage asked. Heartless started to emerge from the ground after Gray's question. The people who were near the team started to run away so they didn't get hurt, although the Heartless were more focused on the group of Mages and especially on Sora.

"They like to appear when you say those kinds of things," Sora said.

"I'll keep that in mind," Gray said and then he took off his shirt. "But now, it's time to let them know that they're not welcome here."

"Yeah, now it's on," Sora said with decision and drew his Keyblade. Erza also took her sword, while Lucy, Wendy and Natsu also prepared for the fight.

"All right, I'm all fired up!" Natsu exclaimed.

* * *

**That was chapter three, hope you enjoyed reading it. I made a little reference to my other story since they are all connected. Review if you want and I will appreciate if someone wants to give me an advice or just to make a suggestion for the story.**


	4. Protecting the First Town

_**Protecting the First Town**_

After Sora joined Fairy Tail, Natsu wanted to take him to a mission so the Keyblade wielder could get the hang of it, although he was already experienced in going to missions, especially when the objective was to eliminate Heartless. Right now Sora, along with the rest of Team Natsu, was fighting against the Heartless that appeared in Freesia Town.

Five Neoshadows jumped toward Sora really fast, but he was faster than the Heartless and before they could land an attack, the Keybearer jumped and slashed them with his sword with just one hit. More Heartless were waiting him on the ground so he decided to use magic since he thought that it would be a good idea to train his magic in a world like this.

"Let's start with a fire technique," said Sora. He started to focus and then the blade of his sword was enveloped in flames, he swung the Keyblade horizontally and a fire wave came out of it which cause an explosion that destroyed a good number of Heartless.

Natsu stared in awe at what Sora did. "Amazing!" he said. "I'm going to use my flames too!"

The Dragon Slayer rushed toward some Heartless that were in front of him and while doing it, he produced a large stream of fire from each of his arms that burned all the Heartless that came in contact with the flames.

Natsu's attack almost hit a building that was near him but he was too focused in the battle to notice, however Erza did and she thought that they should split up so they won't destroy the area where they were fighting.

"Everyone split up!" Erza shouted. "If we use all our magic in the same place, we will end up destroying the city."

The group obeyed the knight and split up. Most of the Heartless went after Sora, but that was normal since he's the one with a Keyblade, however the other Mages also had a lot of Heartless chasing them.

The Ice-Make Mage was now on a roof with the Heartless trying to hurt him; however he was fast enough to avoid their attacks and prepare a counterattack.

"This will teach you not to mess with us, _Ice-Make: Ice Cannon!_" Gray said and then he created a long cannon made of ice that he used to destroy half of the Heartless that were following him.

Meanwhile, in another part of the town, Wendy, along with Carla and Happy, was running to a more open space so she could use her magic without damaging the town's buildings. She reached a wide street and turned around to face the Heartless.

"Okay, here I go, _Tenryū no Hōkō!" _Wendy released a large quantity of air from her mouth in the form of a tornado-like blast which cleared the whole street from Heartless and fortunately all the buildings were intact after the attack.

"Nice job, Wendy," said Carla and then she looked at Happy. "Shouldn't you be with Natsu? He's your partner after all."

"If I go with him, I will end up toasted," said Happy as he ate a fish. "Besides I have the responsibility of protecting you both."

"Just don't get in the way," Carla said. "And stop stealing food!"

While Wendy and the Exceeds started to look for the other members of the team, Sora was looking for more Heartless to defeat since he already destroyed the ones who were chasing him. He was now on the roofs so he could have a better view and after a few minutes of searching he found Erza fighting the Heartless and she was wearing a different armor. Most of the armor looked like a cheetah's skin; the knight even had a pair of large cheetah's ears adorning her head, but what impressed the Keyblade wielder was how incredibly fast Erza was moving.

"It seems that she doesn't need help over there," Sora muttered while he saw how Erza defeated tons of Heartless in a flash.

He continued looking for Heartless and when he arrived at a building's roof that was near a wide square, he saw some Heartless. Sora jumped toward them and before landing, he threw his Keyblade at them and the sword started to loop around, striking all the Heartless that were on the ground.

Sora landed and the Keyblade returned to his hand. He started to look around to see if there were more Heartless, but he didn't see anything. When he was about to leave some Heartless appeared from behind, but they were immediately destroyed by a Minotaur, that Sora recognized as the one he saw before he saved Lucy.

The Minotaur looked at Sora and saluted him. "Master Sora, I'm glad to see you," he said. "I'm Taurus, the Golden Bull."

"Nice to meet you Taurus," replied Sora, he thought that telling them to not call him master was going to be useless. "You did a good work against that group of Heartless."

"Of course," Taurus said as he stretched his muscles. "I'm one of the Zodiac Spirits after all."

Sora was going to ask Taurus about why Lucy wasn't with him, but then he saw the blonde running to them.

"Taurus," Lucy panted, "I know you wanted to get back at the Heartless, but at least you could have waited for me."

Suddenly Taurus had hearts on his eyes. "I'm sorry Lucy-san," he said. "I hope they didn't damage your nice body."

Sora was bewildered with his sudden change of attitude, although from Lucy's expression, Sora could tell that Taurus usually acted like that. After closing Taurus' Gate, Lucy approached Sora and asked him if he was okay.

"I'm fine," he answered, "how about you?"

"A bit tired," she said, "but at least the Heartless aren't reappearing this time, before you came they regenerated right after being defeated."

Sora let out a chuckle. "Yeah, that's the advantage of having a Keyblade wielder nearby," he said. "Have you seen the others?"

The blonde shook her head. "No, but I think I saw Natsu's flames before I came here."

Suddenly the two heard and explosion, it was the Fire Dragon Slayer; he was fighting against some Heartless on the top of a house. Natsu saw Sora and Lucy and decided to descend to their level.

"Hey, how are you doing?" he asked.

"Natsu, you have to be more careful," Lucy said. "If you destroy the city's buildings, the Mayor will get mad."

Natsu laughed. "Sorry Lucy, sometimes I don't know my own strength," he said and then looked at Sora. "I saw how you fought right after we split up, you were amazing!"

Sora grinned. "Thanks," he said gratefully, "your techniques are also really cool."

"Yeah, I'm a specialist in fire attacks," Natsu said proudly as fire came out of his hand.

"Hey Sora," Lucy began, "how do we know if the town is safe? Do we have to fight the Heartless until they stop appearing?"

"Normally that would be a way," said Sora. "But it's more likely that we will have to defeat the Heartless that commands the others in this area."

When Sora said that, Natsu's face brightened up. "Alright, we're going to fight against a huge Heartless!"

Sora laughed at Natsu enthusiasm, he sure liked to fight, although Lucy looked like she wasn't very happy with the idea of fighting a giant Heartless. The three started looking for the rest of the team as they fought with the Heartless that appeared in front of them. They arrived at the center of the town where they encountered the rest of team. They were being attacked by a huge amount of Heartless, even Sora was surprised at how many Heartless were in the area.

"About time you appeared," said a tired Gray. "They are too many for us to handle."

"Sora, can you do something about it?" said Erza who was also exhausted. It looks like the Heartless decided to focus on them, instead of going after Sora.

There were a lot of Heartless, but it wasn't something that the Keyblade wielder couldn't handle. Sora drew his Keyblade and pointed the sword at the sky which caused the area to darken for a moment and then a cascade of blue lightning bolts fell upon all the Heartless in the area and destroyed them.

All the Mages were dumbfounded at what Sora did, even the Keybearer couldn't believe that his magic improved that much since he only expected to defeat half of the Heartless that were attacking them.

"_My magic seems to be better than I expected_," thought Sora. "_I don't even feel tired after using all that magic since we started fighting._"

After a moment of silence Gray decided to speak. "Okay, I'll be the one who say it," he said. "That was impressive."

"Sora-san, that was amazing!" Wendy praised.

"By the look on your face I suppose that you didn't expect that result," Erza said.

"Well, I expected something less destructive," said Sora. "At least it didn't destroy anything but the Heartless."

"Sora, you must teach me some of your fire magic!" said an excited Natsu. "I want to do this like that!"

"I don't think that's a good idea…" said Lucy. She didn't even want to imagine what would happen if Natsu learns to use magic like the one Sora used. They stood in the same place, waiting for more Heartless, but it seems that Sora defeated all.

"It looks like we're done here," Erza said. "Let's inform the Mayor that the town is safe now."

"Is it weird that a giant Heartless didn't appear?" Lucy asked Sora.

"Not really," he replied. "I guess we got really-"

A small quake behind the team interrupted Sora's sentence, the group turned around to see that a big Heartless just appeared in the center of the town. It was a Guard Armor, the Heartless that Sora defeated when he met Donald and Goofy, but this one was bigger and the armor was completely black.

"…lucky," Sora finished.

"Lucy, why did you have to open your mouth…?" Happy said, but Lucy didn't answer.

"Alright, that's more like it, _Karyū no Tekken!_" Natsu engulfed his fist in flames and then he punched the Heartless in the helmet. The Guard Armor lost its balance and it was about to fall on a church, the same one Natsu destroyed the last time he was in Freesia Town. Erza noticed that and rushed to the back of the Heartless and hit it, she managed to avert the Heartless' fall however her attack was too hard and now the Heartless was going to fall on the buildings that we're opposite the church.

"Natsu, don't send the Heartless over here!" Erza said.

Natsu obeyed and kicked the Heartless sending it to his left. This time it was going to fall on a group of small houses, but Gray was fast enough to stop the Heartless using a giant hammer he made with his magic.

"Be more careful, flame-head!" Gray shouted, however he didn't noticed that he sent the Heartless toward a school so now was Sora's turn to prevent that the Guard Armor destroyed the school with his fall. The four started to hit the Heartless every time it was about to fall on a building.

Lucy and Wendy watched speechless at how Natsu, Erza, Gray and Sora were playing pinball using the Heartless as a ball.

"What are they doing…?" Wendy said.

"If they keep doing that, the Heartless will get angry," said Lucy.

As Lucy said, the Guard Armor had enough of them and started to spin its arms and hit the four people toying with him really hard. The four were sent away by the attack so Wendy, followed by Carla, ran toward them to heal them while Lucy summoned Loke to finish the Heartless off.

"I'll take care of the Heartless, my dear Lucy," Loke said as he started to move his hands in a circular motion forming a magic circle that shot a large blast of light at the Heartless. Loke's attack produced an explosion that covered the whole area with smoke.

"Nice one, Loke!" said Lucy, however when the area was clear the two saw that the Heartless was still alive, but at least Loke's blast destroyed its legs and arms.

The Guard Armor started to spin its body like a drill and moved toward the Celestial Mage and her Spirit. Loke stood in front the blonde Mage to protect her, but before the Heartless could get near to them someone destroyed it in a split of a second. Lucy poked her head over Loke's shoulder to see that Sora was the one who defeated the giant armor.

"Are you two okay?" asked the Keybearer and the two nodded.

"Aren't you hurt after that hit?" asked Lucy referring to when the Heartless hit him with its arms.

"Nah, I've been hit harder than that," he replied. "Where are the others?"

"Here we are!" said Gray who was walking to them, along with Erza, Wendy and Carla. "Man, that thing hits harder than I thought."

"Where is the Heartless?!" exclaimed Natsu who just appeared with Happy following him. "I'm going to kick its ass!"

"Sorry Natsu," said Sora, "I've already cut it down."

"Oh man…" Natsu sighed. "Well, at least I've burned a lot of Heartless today."

"No kidding, this town was plagued," Gray said and then looked at Sora. "Good thing that you were with us this time."

"Aye," Happy said. "Today Sora was the one who defeated more Heartless than anyone."

"Yeah, but the next time it will be me," Natsu said as he cracked his knuckles.

"In your dreams, Natsu," said Gray.

"Say that again, ice-stripper!" exclaimed Natsu. The two were about to start another fight, but Erza knocked them out before they could start.

"We should tell the Mayor that the job is done," Erza said however, the Mayor of Freesia Town appeared around the corner of the street next to them and behind him there were most of the people who lived in the town.

"That won't be necessary, I've already seen what you have done," the Mayor said with a smile. "Let's me say that I'm really grateful, you did a good job."

"Well, we wouldn't have been able to do it without Sora," Erza said smiling at the Keyblade wielder. "He's the reason why we could defeat the monster with ease."

"Yes, I see that you were using a Keyblade," the Mayor said. "I must confess that I didn't think that the Keyblade even existed since in Fiore no one has ever seen one, but there are a lot of stories that talk about that sword."

"It's unknown to most people," Sora admitted, "besides there aren't many people who can use it."

"Anyway, I thank you for your help Mr. Sora," said the Mayor. "I'll tell the other towns that Fairy Tail has a Keyblade wielder, I'm sure they will be more than glad to know about it."

"A good reputation for the guild wouldn't be bad at all," Carla said.

"If you want, you can stay here until the festival finishes," the Mayor said and suddenly Natsu recovered from Erza's hit.

"Alright, I'm really hungry!" he said and then he looked his partner. "Happy, let's go find something to eat!"

"Aye sir!" answered the cat.

"It seems that he already decided for all of us," Lucy said looking at the excited Dragon Slayer.

"We should have some fun before returning to the guild," Erza said smiling at the blonde.

The team accepted the Mayor's offer and stayed for the festival. Natsu and Happy were eating all they could, despite they already ate when they arrived in the town, later Gray and Natsu participated in a game that ended up with the two of them fighting each other, but they stopped as soon as they saw Erza. Sora was having fun, the festival remembered him of the ones that took place in Destiny Island and he really liked them. He didn't know how, but Lucy convinced him to dance and at first he enjoyed dancing with her and Wendy, but when he did it with Erza he ended up very dizzy.

After the festival, the team went to the town-hall to get the reward for the mission. The reward was five hundred thousand Jewels and that would be, more or less, eighty-three thousand Jewels for each member of team however, Sora told them that he didn't want the money, he didn't want to get paid for something that he's supposed to do. They insisted, but he refused to take the money and Sora didn't know why, but Lucy was hugging him tightly and mumbling something about a rent.

* * *

The team was now in Magnolia again, after the trip they were impatient to arrive at the guild, especially Natsu who wanted to take another mission as soon as possible. His energy remembered Sora of a certain blue-haired ninja that he met not long ago. When they arrived at the guild, the girl called Levy greeted Lucy and Wendy, Erza went to talk to Makarov and Natsu ran to a man that Sora didn't know yet, he was tall and had reddish orange hair.

Meanwhile Gray was asking Sora if he knew ice spells, the Mage was curious to know about Sora's magic, especially after seeing what Sora was capable of. As they talked a woman with blue hair and pale skin approached them and Gray noticed.

"Ah hello, Juvia," he said. "How have you been?"

"Juvia has been very sad when Gray-sama left," she answered. "But now that you're here, Juvia is more than happy."

Sora could tell that the two had a good relationship, or at least that is how it looked.

"Is she your girlfriend, Gray?" asked Sora, although he didn't know that he misunderstood the situation.

"N-no, what makes you think that?" asked a flustered Gray. Juvia, however, looked very pleased at what the Keyblade wielder said since she grabbed Sora's hands and looked at him with sparkles in her eyes.

"Do you really think that Juvia could be Gray-sama's girlfriend?" asked an excited Juvia.

Sora was taken aback by her sudden reaction and he didn't know what to answer, but had the feeling that if he said no to the woman, she would get depressed. While Sora made acquaintance with the Water Mage, Erza talked with Makarov about the mission.

"Then he did a good work, right?" asked the master.

"More than good," Erza answered. "When I saw him the first time I could sense that he was powerful, but I didn't expect him to be that strong. He could have gone to Freesia Town alone and come back without a scratch."

"I didn't expect less from him," Makarov said.

Sora was now looking at the Request Board, he thought that it would be good to choose a mission as soon as possible since Fiore was so big, but there were a lot of request and it was difficult to take just one.

"Already taking another mission?" asked someone behind Sora.

Sora looked behind to see that Mirajane was the one talking to him. "Yeah, this kingdom is really big," he answered. "There were a lot of Heartless in Freesia Town, so maybe the other towns are in danger too."

Mirajane smiled at Sora's concern. "You shouldn't overdo it," the woman said. "Why don't you rest today and take a mission tomorrow. Everyone needs to relax sometimes."

Sora sighed, he thought that maybe he was worrying too much but when it comes to the Heartless he always wanted to do a good job, everyone counted on him so he didn't want to disappoint anyone.

"I think I will follow your advice," Sora said. "I'm going to forgot about missions until tomorrow."

"Very well then, why don't you try to explore the guild a little?" she said. "Try to familiarize with it."

Sora thought that what she said would be a good idea. He was going to go out to see what was there but someone called him, he turned around to see that it was Lucy's friend, Levy.

"Umm, hi," she began, "I don't know if you know m-"

"Levy, right?" Sora interrupted her. "I heard your name my first day here, nice to meet you."

"Likewise," she answered smiling at Sora. "Listen, after reading about Keyblades, I became curious about it and I wondered if you would like to answer me some questions."

"Sure, I don't see why not," Sora told her. He didn't forget about what Makarov asked him, but he could at least answer a couple of question since Levy looked really interested.

"Thank you!" she said gratefully. The two sat together and Levy pulled out the book she talked about, the one she read when Sora arrived at Fairy Tail. She also took a notebook and a pen, the Keyblade wielder was a little nervous since it looked like if Levy was going to interrogate him.

"Okay, firstly," she began, "I'd like to know about what makes a Keyblade choose a wielder."

"That's a difficult one," said Sora scratching his cheek. "I'd say that every Keyblade wielder has a strong heart, although there has to more reasons since there aren't a lot of wielders."

"How many are you?" asked the bluenette and Sora told her that they were five, he knew that there were more, but he wasn't supposed to talk about them.

"Lucy told me that Loke called you Keyblade's Chosen One," she commented, "are you different from the others?"

Sora's face turned serious, he was one of the people who wanted to know the answer to that question, why he was the Keyblade's Chosen One if his Keyblade didn't choose him first. His Keyblade was supposed to be Riku's, but he is the one who is wielding it now.

Levy looked worried at him. "Sora, are you okay?" she asked. "If I asked something that I wasn't supposed to, I'm sorry."

"No, it's not that," he said. "It's just that I don't know why people call me that, but there is one legend that says that the chosen one will save the worlds, while another says he will bring chaos and destruction upon them."

"Well, in my opinion I don't think that you would destroy the worlds," said Levy. "I think you are a very nice person."

Sora grinned. "We just talked ten minutes and you consider me a nice person?"

"Of course," Levy said smiling. "Besides, you're friends with Lucy, so that makes you a friend of mine too."

"Thanks Levy, I needed that," said the spiky and the girl gave him a thumb up. "By the way, are you a Mage too?"

"Indeed," she replied. "I use Solid Scrip Magic; I can materialize solid words in their depicted form, for example, if I write the word "fire", I would create fire and use it to attack an enemy."

"That's cool," he said. "I've to say that everyone here use a lot of impressive magic."

"Yes, but if you ask me, the most interesting magic around here is the Dragon Slayer one," Levy told him.

"Oh yeah, Natsu and Wendy are both Dragon Slayers and I've seen that they are pretty strong," the Keybearer said.

"I agree," Levy replied. "Fairy Tail has also a third Dragon Slayer, I don't know if you have seen him."

Sora was about to ask who was the third one, when suddenly he felt someone standing up behind him.

"Hey kid," said the person to draw Sora's attention. The boy turned his head and saw a man with long spiky black hair and red eyes.

"I heard Salamander saying that you were really strong," said the man, "so I want to have a fight with you to see if that's true."

"Don't start picking up fights, Gajeel," said an annoyed Levy. "Besides, I'm talking with Sora right now."

"I also would like to test you strength if you don't mind," said suddenly a black cat that jumped on the table where Levy and Sora were talking.

"Not you too, Lily…" said Levy. Sora was surprised that the cat asked him for a fight, but he knows that he shouldn't underestimate anyone in this world.

"Wait Gajeel!" shouted Natsu who appeared suddenly. "I was the one who was going to ask Sora for a fight!"

"Then you should have done it when you went with him to that mission!" exclaimed Gajeel. The two of them were face to face and it was obvious that they were going to start fighting.

Sora looked how the two of them fought and destroyed part of the guild again.

"Maybe I should have gone to a mission…"


	5. Duel and Requests

_**Duel and Requests**_

Natsu and Gajeel ended up fighting each other and forgot about Sora, although the Keyblade wielder had interest in fighting another member of the guild so maybe he'll ask someone for sparring soon. Sora continued explaining Levy about the Keyblade and what the sword was capable of, like opening any lock or closing the path to a world's heart. After Levy was satisfied with all the information Sora gave her, the spiky boy played cards with Cana and a kid called Romeo and Sora was surprised at how good Cana was at it, although he suspected that she was using magic. When the day was about to end, Sora realized that he didn't have a place to sleep but, fortunately for him, Natsu offered his house and Sora thanked him for his gesture.

The next morning, Sora was about to leave and go to the guild, but Natsu and Happy told him that first the three must go to Lucy's house to visit her and now they were in the main room of Lucy's apartment, waiting for her to wake up.

"Are you sure about this, guys?" asked Sora.

"Yeah, don't worry," said Natsu. "Happy and I always come here before going to the guild."

Sora took a look at the room and he noticed that Lucy had a very nice place to live. He saw a pile of papers on a desk with a pen at its right.

"Is Lucy writing a story or something?" asked Sora.

"Aye," said Happy. "It's a novel that talks about her adventures in the guild."

"Yeah, let's see if she added you in it," said Natsu as he took a pile of papers.

"Won't she get mad if you look at it?" asked Sora but Natsu began reading anyway.

"Today Fairy Tail got a new member, a legendary Keyblade wielder," Natsu read. "His name is Sora; he is a very nice boy, really strong and selfless…"

Sora blushed when he heard Lucy's description of him. Suddenly the three heard a door opening, it was Lucy who just woke up and when she saw her novel in Natsu's hands, the expression on her face changed from sleepy to angry.

"What are you doing in my house again?!" Lucy shouted as she kicked Natsu. "And don't read that!"

Lucy grabbed the papers as if she was protecting them, then she noticed that Sora was also in her apartment and he was looking at her with a little scared face.

"Sora?" said Lucy. "Don't tell me they convinced you to break in my house."

"More or less…" replied Sora, "sorry Lucy."

The girl sighed but smiled at the end. "Don't worry, they have done it so many times that I should be used to it."

Sora sighed in relief, glad that he wasn't going to get a kick from the blonde. After Lucy scolded Natsu and Happy, the four left the apartment and started walking to the guild. When they arrived, the building was almost empty, but at least Mirajane was there and she told Sora that the requests were being changed so he had to wait if he wanted to take one.

The Keybearer didn't know what to do but then he remembered that a certain person wanted to fight him so he was going to accept his duel since he wanted to see the abilities of an Iron Dragon Slayer. He looked for Gajeel and found him talking with Pantherlily.

"Hey Gajeel," said Sora and the man looked at him. "If you still want to fight, let's do it."

Gajeel let out his trademark laugh and stood up. "Alright, I'll take you on."

"Lily, we can spar later if you don't mind," said Sora to the cat.

"Sure, don't worry about it," replied Lily.

"Wait Sora," said Levy who just heard what he said to Gajeel, "I know he asked for a fight, but you don't have to if you don't want."

"It's okay Levy," assured Sora. "Besides, I don't have anything else to do."

Sora and Gajeel went outside and some members of the guild did it too since they were interested in the fight. Natsu was a bit upset with Gajeel since he also wanted to fight Sora, Erza was there too because she wanted to make sure that they don't overdo it.

"I don't know if I should worry about Sora or Gajeel," said Levy.

"Relax Levy-chan, Sora isn't a brute, I'm sure he won't go all out," said Lucy. "Gajeel will do the same."

Levy looked at the blonde like if she said something with no sense and Lucy realized that the Dragon Slayer was someone who always fights seriously.

"Okay, forget what I said…" Lucy said. Meanwhile Happy was near a board, organizing a bet about the fight that was about to begin and some people started to bet for the two opponents.

Gajeel and Sora were looking at each other, the man cracked his knuckles and Sora summoned his Keyblade and got in his battle pose.

"_I think Salamander was just exaggerating, but I'll give him some credit,_" he thought. "Alright, I'll let you attack first."

Sora raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I want to see wh-" Gajeel stopped talking when he saw that, in less than a second, Sora was in front of him and about to hit him with his sword. The Dragon Slayer moved his head to the right and the Keyblade passed within inches of his face. Before Gajeel could react Sora was already behind him, however he managed to cover with his arms and when Sora hit him with the Keyblade and avoid being knocked down but the hit was strong enough to make him move from his position. Gajeel lowered his arms and looked dumbfounded at the Keyblade wielder who was smiling at him.

"Shall we start now?" said Sora.

"_This kid isn't normal,_" thought Gajeel and then smirked. "_This is going to be fun after all_."

Gajeel dashed to Sora and started to attack him with melee attacks which Sora successfully dodged, but then Gajeel used his magic to transform his arm into a large steel cub and sent Sora to the air.

The Dragon Slayer jumped behind Sora before he could recover and transformed his leg into another steel cub and when he was about to hit the spiky boy to make him land, Sora, despite being upside down, turned and blocked Gajeel's leg and sent him away.

Sora used his power to transform his Keyblade into a long blade made of light and went to attack Gajeel.

"_Tetsuryūken!_" Gajeel shouted and his arm transformed into a jagged steel blade that looked very deadly. The two started to clash their own blade with the one of their opponent. Both of them managed to land hits on the other, luckily for Sora, the spikes on Gajeel's blade didn't penetrate his skin but still, he was as damaged as the Dragon Slayer.

Sora hurled his Keyblade at Gajeel, but the man used his Dragon Slayer Magic to cover his hand in steel scales and grabbed the Keyblade, however he didn't know about the swords' property of returning to his wielder so Sora was going to take advantage of that.

The Keybearer landed and then jumped toward Gajeel with great speed and the black-haired man found strange that Sora was going to attack without his sword, but then the Keyblade vanished from his hand and appeared on Sora's, something that he didn't expect.

"_Zantetsuken!_" Sora executed a single, incredibly fast strike that dealt a great amount of damage to Gajeel and made him land. While Sora descended to the ground, the Dragon Slayer stood up slowly, touching the part of his torso where the Keyblade hit. He could cover his body with steel scales, but even with that protection, Sora's technique could break through it.

"I hope you can continue," said Sora. "It would be a pity if we had to stop."

Gajeel laughed. "You took the words right out of my mouth," he said and the two started to fight again.

Meanwhile the people watched the fight in awe, Team Natsu already knew that Sora was strong, but the other members of the guild couldn't believe that someone that young was powerful enough to face a Dragon Slayer like Gajeel.

"Yahoo!" cheered Natsu. "Don't stop you two!"

"Amazing," said Levy with an astonished expression.

"I told you he was strong, didn't I?" said Lucy looking at the bluenette.

Sora and Gajeel were in the air again, the Dragon Slayer tried to hit Sora using his steel limbs, but the Keybearer could dodge his offensive. Then Gajeel created with his magic a lot of small knives that threw at Sora. The boy could deflect most of the knives with his Keyblade, but some of them could cut him. When Sora looked in front of him, Gajeel wasn't there. Now he was just behind Sora and about to use his signature breath attack.

"_Tetsuryū no Hōkō!_" A powerful tornado came out from Gajeel's mouth and was directed to the Keyblade wielder. Sora was fast enough to use a reflect spell in front of him and block the attack, but the spell couldn't stop it completely and part of Gajeel's Dragon Roar could damage Sora. Besides, Gajeel was so near to the Keybearer that the explosion created when Sora's spell blocked part of the tornado reached him.

The two didn't notice, but their attacks were destroying part of the guild's entrance, although not as much as when all the guild's members started fighting inside the building.

"Shouldn't we stop them?" Wendy said.

"Sora is starting to behave like a member of this guild when it comes to fighting," Carla said. "When we were on the mission, he managed to defeat the Heartless and leaving the city intact."

"Natsu is a bad influence," Happy joked.

"Hey, that's not true!" Natsu complained.

Returning to duel, the two fighters were on the ground trying to knock out each other, Gajeel used his steel covered hands to throw punches at the Keybearer and Sora tried to hit the Dragon Slayer with his sword as he dodged his attacks. Both of them jumped back and prepared to make a powerful move, the two started to charge their magic power and the other Mages could tell that they were going a bit too far.

Erza was going to stop them but they already were running to execute their attack, however when the two were about to collide, two giant hands smashed the two of them and stopped the fight. The rest of the Mages were bewildered when they saw what happened, it turns out that the one who stopped them was Makarov who just arrived at the guild.

"Stop playing around or you'll end up destroying the guild," said Makarov and the people watching the fight sweat-dropped.

"Well, I think duel is over…" said Levy.

Sora and Gajeel recovered from the hit and sat on the ground with their arms crossed. The two of them had bruises and cuts from the fight, but nothing that they couldn't endure.

"Man, what mood-killer…" said Sora.

"You said it," replied Gajeel. The two looked at each other and then they smirked and fist-bumped.

"You're pretty tough, Iron Dragon Slayer," said Sora.

"I can say the same about you, Keyblade wielder," Gajeel admitted.

Lucy watched how the two people who just fought acted friendly to each other now; she found it a little strange since Gajeel wasn't someone who makes friends easily, although maybe it's because he considered Sora a worthy opponent.

"Only he could get along with Gajeel with that ease," said Levy smiling.

"That's the way he is," said Mirajane who watched the fight too. "I'm sure Lucy also like Sora's friendly nature."

"Yeah, you could say that," said Lucy.

Sora entered the guild again after Wendy healed his wounds and Gajeel's. He could have used his own magic to cure himself, but since the girl offered Sora didn't want to snub her. Two men congratulated Sora for the fight against the Dragon Slayer; one of them had brown hair, which is kept in a pompadour-like style, and a cigarette in his mouth. The other man had black dark blue hair and introduced himself as Romeo's father. The two of them started to talk about how the youth of before were very strong and energetic.

"_How quickly they changed the subject…_" Sora thought. Then someone started to call the Keyblade wielder and Sora turned his head to see that it was Gray who was near the Request Board that now had a lot of papers on it.

"What is it, Gray?" asked Sora.

The Mage pointed at the board. "Take a look at the requests," he said smiling.

Sora looked confused at Gray, maybe the Ice Mage wanted to go on a mission as soon as possible. The boy looked at the board to see that the requests about Heartless had increased but now there was a note at the end of each paper.

"Request addressed to the Keyblade wielder of Fairy Tail," read Sora and then he looked at Gray. "Woah, that was really fast."

"Your work at Freesia Town wasn't overlooked," said Gray who now was in his underwear. "But yes, I have to admit that news travels fast."

"_Why did he take off his clothes?_" thought Sora.

The brown-haired boy stared at the board, there were a lot of requests, some of them were from places that were close to Magnolia, according to the map Mirajane gave him, and he could complete them without taking any kind of transport.

"Say Gray, can I take all the missions I want at the same time or is there a limit?" asked Sora.

"I guess you can take all the missions you think you will be able to accomplish," answered Gray. "Wait a moment; are you going to take all the requests about Heartless?"

"I think so," said Sora. "I know there are a lot, but I have you and the others to watch my back, right?"

"That's right," said the Ice-Make Mage.

"Besides, I'm sure the money will come in handy to pay Lucy's rent," Sora joked and the two laughed.

The boy took all the requests about Heartless and went to talk with Mirajane. When he arrived at where the woman was he put all the requests on the table.

"Oh, my, are you going to take all these?" asked Mirajane surprised.

"Yup, can't let the Heartless get away," said Sora with a grin on his face.

Mirajane giggled. "Alright then," she said. "Good luck and take care."

While Sora looked for his team with Gray, Mirajane's sister watched the Request Board astonished.

"First he fights Gajeel and now he left the board half empty," said Lisanna. "Sora works hard despite being the new guy."

"He's a man!" said Elfman.

"It's his second day as a Fairy Tail Mage and he has taken more missions than you Nab," said the young Mage known as Warren Rocko.

"Hey, that's because they're missions that only he can do," said Nab Lasaro, someone that spends most of the time looking at the Request Board looking for a job.

Meanwhile Team Natsu was already leaving to the first mission. At first everyone was surprised at how many requests Sora took, but they agreed that it was a good idea to complete them as soon as possible. Natsu was happy because they didn't take the train so he won't get sick and, like Sora said, when Lucy saw the rewards she got excited, although that wasn't the only thing the blonde cared about.

All the team spent the whole day clearing the towns near Magnolia, it was just like the mission in Freesia Town, they arrived, the Heartless appeared and the group defeated them. In some areas the Heartless were tough, but they didn't stand a chance against the whole team working together. Sora got to know another of Lucy's Celestial Spirits, it was the Zodiac Spirit known as Cancer. The Spirit wanted to change Sora's hair-style but the Keyblade wielder said that it was okay the way it was.

* * *

Now, after spending the night outdoors, they were in a dense forest that the group needed to cross so they can reach the next town in the list. Erza told them to stay close so they won't lose, but that was the first thing that happened since they got attacked by Heartless. After defeating them, Sora realized that he was lost and that the redhead was going to scold him for that.

After walking for a few minutes and destroying the Heartless that attacked him, Sora started to hear some noises. It looked like if someone was fighting near his position, so he ran to find the person who was battling. Sora reached an area without tress and saw a few Heartless, but soon they were destroyed by some ice magic.

"_Great, it must be Gray!_" Sora thought and walked to the where he saw the Heartless, but instead of seeing the black-haired man, he saw a different person, it was a young man with bluish silver hair and was naked from the waist up.

Sora noticed that the man had a mark on his right pectoral; the boy thought that maybe it was the mark of his guild since he saw that Gray had his mark on the same place. Sora also remembered that Master Makarov said that now all the guilds had to work together so they can defeat the Heartless, so he approached the man.

The Ice Mage noticed Sora and looked at him like if he was an enemy. "You, what are you doing here?" asked him as he prepared an attack.

"Hey relax, I got lost and now I'm looking for the rest of my group," said Sora.

"_From the outside he looks like a normal boy, but he looks uninjured so the Heartless in the forest couldn't touch him,_" the man thought. "Tell me; are you from a Mages Guild?"

"Yeah," Sora answered and took off his left glove and showed his hand to him. "I'm from Fairy Tail."

The man smirked and lowered his hands. "Then you now Gray Fullbuster, right?"

"Yeah, he is in my group," Sora told him. "I'm Sora by the way."

"Lyon Vastia from Lamia Scale," he replied, now dressed. "Could you tell me where were you going before getting lost?" he asked.

"Hargeon Town," answered Sora. "Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, you were walking in the right direction, follow me," said Lyon.

When the two exited the forest, they arrived at the entrance of Hargeon Town, according to what Lucy told Sora, this was the town where she met Natsu and Happy for the first time. They arrived at a park where the rest of Sora's team was. They were with some people that the boy didn't know, one of them had short stature, blue hair and very bushy eyebrows, secondly a man with distinctive animal features and lastly a woman with blue eyes and long pink hair.

"Gray," said Lyon. "I think I found the lost member of your team."

Gray and the others turned to see Lyon with the Keyblade wielder at his side.

"So you're here too, Lyon," said Gray. "Are you on a mission with your team?"

"Yes," answered him. "Jura-san is here in a meeting with the former member of the Magic Council, Yajima. He told us to protect the town from the Heartless until they're done."

"And why are you here?" asked the blue-haired man.

Erza grabbed the request paper and showed it. "We are here to clear the town from Heartless," she said. "Yajima-san was the one who sent the request."

Lyon and his team were surprised when they heard what Erza said.

"How can that be?!" shouted the man with dog ears.

"Don't get angry, Toby," said the woman. "There must be a reason."

"Hargeon Town is big," said Lyon. "Maybe he thought that just one guild wasn't enough, we can't blame him."

"Let's talk with him," said Erza to the Fairy Tail Team and they followed her.

"Shall we do the same, Lyon?" asked the woman.

"Yes, I'd like to know what Yajima wants from them," replied him.

Meanwhile Sora asked his team about Lamia Scale, they told him about Lyon, Yuka, Toby and Sherry, the incident in Galuna Island, skipping the part about Jellal, and with Oracion Seis. Gray asked Sora how Lyon and he encountered and the boy told him about when he saw ice magic and found Lyon fighting Heartless.

"And when I told him that I was from Fairy Tail he didn't attack me," said Sora.

"Yeah, that's sounds like him," said Gray.

"By the way," said the Keybearer, "did the Heartless cause you any trouble?"

"There weren't a lot of them," Lucy said, "so we managed to defeat all of them before arriving in Hargeon town."

The Fairy Tail group arrived, along with the other team, at the address that was written on the request, it was a restaurant called "8-Island" and there were two people talking at the entrance, a tall and muscular man known as Jura and a small old man that was the one who sent the request to Fairy Tail, Yajima.

"Oh, you're here," said Yajima when he saw Team Natsu.

"Hi!" greeted Natsu.

"Good Morning Yajima-san, we took your request," Erza said. "Although it seems that we're not the only guild here."

"I know," the former councilor said. "I called Jura to talk about our Heartless problem and he brought a Lamia Scale's team to protect the city, but the request is still active for you. By the way, there's a rumor around Fiore about Fairy Tail that I'd like to know if it's true, that's one reason why sent the request to your guild after all."

"That's right," Jura said. "I heard that Fairy Tail recruited a Keyblade wielder two days ago and that would explain how you managed to save so many towns recently, but…"

"It's a little difficult to believe that suddenly a Keyblade wielder comes here, like if someone called or sent him," said Lyon. He didn't notice but Sora was trying to hide the smile he had on his face.

"It's true!" exclaimed Happy. "And we can prove it!"

"How?" asked Yuka still skeptical.

"He was the one who took the job," said Erza.

"Then wh-" Lyon stopped talking when he realized who was the one with a Keyblade. Lyon looked at the spiky boy who was at Wendy's left.

"What's up?" Sora joked as he waved his hand.


	6. Investigating and Fighting

**_Investigating and Fighting_**

After the interruption during the fight with Gajeel, Sora took all the requests that were on the board of the guild that were about defeating Heartless. The Keyblade wielder, along with his new team, accomplished every mission, clearing a lot of towns that were near Magnolia and when they went to Hargeon Town for the last request they encountered with another guild, Lamia Scale. At this moment, the team of that guild stared at the brown-haired boy with disbelief.

"Are you serious?" said Lyon after a moment of silence. He couldn't believe that the boy he met in the forest was the one who wielded a Keyblade.

"No way, he's just a kid," said Yuka.

Sora didn't like what Yuka said but he didn't say anything, he had to accept that some people were skeptical about a young boy being a Keyblade wielder, although most of them weren't even adults yet, at least the ones Sora knew.

"Now, now, let's not judge from outward appearance," said Yajima. "What's your name, boy?"

"Sora," he said.

"Can you show me your Keyblade?" asked the old man and Sora summoned the sword with his left hand. The former councilor and the Lamia Scale's Mages examined the Keyblade with amazement and curiosity.

"See? It's true," said Natsu who proud to have Sora as a guild mate.

"How can it be?!" exclaimed Toby. Sora wondered why he shouted that much.

"Mind if I grab it for a moment?" Lyon asked Sora and he just handed the sword to the Ice Mage. The Keybearer found curious how the people of this world were so interested in the Keyblade, in other worlds they didn't even asked him about his giant key shaped sword.

"It looks less threatening than I expected," said Lyon and the Keyblade vanished from his hand and appeared in Sora's. "I see that it's true that the Keyblade sticks to its wielder no matter what."

"It's like love," said Sherry and the Fairy Tail Mages sweat-dropped. Jura approached Sora to introduce himself after the boy proved that he was indeed the Keyblade wielder they've heard about.

"It's an honor to meet you Sora-dono, I'm Jura Neekis from Lamia Scale," he said and the boy looked at him and his first impression was that the Mage was really strong, he is one of the Ten Wizard Saints after all and, although Sora didn't know about that yet, he could tell that the man was someone powerful and important.

"Nice to meet you too," replied Sora. "About the number of Heartless here…"

"Yes, I wanted to tell you about that," Yajima said. "The Mages of Lamia Scale managed to keep the Heartless in check since they arrived, however this town is big for just four Mages protecting it so, now that you're here, I'd like you and your team to lend them a hand."

"Sure, it's what we have been doing lately," Sora told him.

"All right, let's kick their butts!" Natsu exclaimed but before he could start running, Yajima told him to wait since he still had something to say.

"There have been rumors around the town," said the former councilor. "People said that they have seen someone suspicious and it seems that the Heartless don't attack that person."

Everyone, except Jura who already knew it, looked concerned when Yajima said that. If there was a person who could control the Heartless in Hargeon Town then it was their priority to capture him. Sora looked especially concerned, there was the possibility that the mysterious person was someone he knew, but without a description of his or her appearance, he won't be able to confirm it.

"Anyone you know?" Gray said to Sora when he noticed his pensive face.

"It's difficult to know," said Sora. "Anyone with enough darkness inside him can control the Heartless."

"It could be a member of a Dark Guild," Jura said. "Anyway, you better start investigating and defeating the Heartless that appear in the town, I'm going to the outskirts to see if there are Heartless over there, I'd like to be sure that no one got attacked when they tried to come to this town."

"We're going to investigate on our own," Lyon said. "If you find something out or the Heartless appear, try to lure them to the town center so we can fight against them together, I still want to see what a Keyblade wielder is capable of."

After that, the Team of Lamia Scale left, Sora though that Lyon was a bit cold but he was concerned about the Heartless so it was obvious that he was a good guy after all.

"We should do the same," Erza said. "Like in the other towns, if we split up we will finish sooner. Lucy, you and Natsu…"

"Erza," interrupted Lucy and the redhead looked at her. "Natsu and Gray already left."

"…" Erza was containing her anger; they were always very impulsive and tend to act without even having a plan. "I'll have a talk with them when we finish here."

"What are we going to do then?" asked Wendy.

"Surely they are just going to look for Heartless," Erza said, "so we'll have to be the ones who investigate. Happy, Carla, could you fly over the town to see if there are Heartless around while we gather information."

"Aye, Erza!" Happy said.

"We'll let you know if we see them," said the female cat and the two left the group.

Sora would rather take care of the Heartless while others investigated, but since Natsu and Gray left without warning, he stayed with the girls to try to find out more about the person who could control the Heartless. Besides, Erza didn't want him to wander alone since he didn't know the town and could get lost again. The Keybearer noticed that in Hargeon Town there wasn't a guild despite being bigger than the other towns they had protected; Lucy told him that the town was more prosperous and renowned in fishing rather than magic, because only a very few people in the town have the ability to use magic.

They started to ask people about the mysterious person, but there were just a few people who heard about it and their information wasn't very useful either, they just told the group what they already knew.

"Probably that person is not even here anymore," Lucy said.

"There's still one place where we can ask," said Erza and then she stopped in front of a small shop. "If I'm not mistaken this is the only Magic Shop in the town, if the person we're looking for is a Mage, it's possible that he went there to buy some supplies."

"Oh yeah, I remember this shop," Lucy said. "It's where I bought Plue's Key. There weren't a lot of things in the shop, but we can try."

Inside the Magic Shop there was an older-looking man who recognized Lucy immediately.

"Ah, young lady," he said. "Did you return to buy another magic item? I see that you brought friends."

"_After selling me Plue's Key for nineteen thousand Jewels I doubt I'll buy here again,_" thought Lucy. "Actually, we're here because we wanted to ask you something."

"We've heard that some people have seen someone suspicious around the town," Erza continued. "Have you seen someone like that?"

The shop owner tried to remember the people who he saw in his shop. "Well, a few hours ago someone came here and took a map without paying, I couldn't see his face but he was big and corpulent."

"Why would he steal a map?" Wendy said.

"Maybe he is planning to attack other towns," said Sora, "so he has already prepared the Heartless to attack this town."

After Sora said that, battle sounds could be heard near the shop which alerted the group and they went outside to see what was happening. They ran to where the battle was taking place, it was in the town center so the four expected to see Natsu and Gray fighting against the Heartless along with the Lamia Scale team, but they were fighting each other instead.

"Is it weird that I expected this to happen?" asked Sora with an uncertain expression on his face.

"Not really…" said Lucy.

"Damn you, droopy eyes!" exclaimed Natsu. "Stop following me, I can take care of the Heartless on my own!"

"Me!?" said Gray. "You're the one who is following me, squinty eyes!"

The two were fighting and the residents of the town were looking at them a bit scared, but what was really scary was Erza approaching at them with a really angry face. When the two Mages noticed that she was right behind them, it was too late.

"What are you doing?" asked Erza with an intimidating tone.

"…" Natsu and Gray were petrified and couldn't say anything, but fortunately for them, the team of Lamia Scale arrived at the town center and saw them before Erza could beat the two Mages.

"I hope you haven't been wasting time, Gray," said Lyon but the black-haired Mage didn't respond, he was still a bit scared because of Erza.

"Did you find out anything?" asked Erza.

"It seems that the person we're looking for has already left the town," said the Ice Mage. "Some people saw someone running away from here, but we just know that he is tall and not very fit."

"We know that he stole a map from the Magic Shop," said Lucy. "Sora thinks that he could be planning to attack other towns."

"Then what shall we do now?" asked Yuka.

"Since we're here, we better eliminate all the Heartless in this town," Erza told him.

Happy and Carla appeared while the two teams were talking.

"Carla, did you see any Heartless around?" asked the Sky Dragon Slayer and the cat shook his head.

"We went to see Jura," said Carla, "but he wasn't fighting anyone."

"Maybe you guys defeated them all already," Gray said to Lyon's team.

Natsu was thinking about something, it was weird that the Heartless just attacked them in the forest, besides they haven't seen a big Heartless like in the other towns yet and he really wanted to fight one of those so he came up with something to check if the Heartless were really gone.

"There's only a way to be sure," said Natsu and everyone looked puzzled at him.

"Natsu, what are you up to?" asked Lucy.

"I'm sure the Heartless won't even appear!" shouted Natsu. He quoted what Gray said in Freesia Town when he thought that there weren't Heartless around. Sora understood what he tried to do and let out a small laugh.

"Natsu, I don't think-" He stopped talking when a bunch of Heartless appeared and surrounded the two teams. "Okay, forget it…"

There were a lot of different Heartless like Neoshadows, Large Bodies, Lance Soldiers and Morning Stars. The two teams were greatly outnumbered by the Heartless.

"Where did these all come from!?" exclaimed Sherry.

"Why did you have to say that!?" said Lucy to Natsu, but the Dragon Slayer just laughed.

"C'mon it's funnier this way," he said. "Look, now we have even more Heartless to defeat than before."

"The more Heartless we defeat, the safer Fiore will be," said Lyon as he and his team prepared to fight.

"Everyone, you know what to do," Erza said to her guild mates and they prepared too, then the Heartless charged at the Mages and they started to use their magic. Lucy summoned Loke since his light-based attacks were the most effective against the Heartless and he could destroy them easily.

"Leave it to me, Lucy," he said and then he used his magic to create a chain of explosions of light that destroyed a great number of Heartless, but there were still a lot of them to beat.

Erza equipped her Heaven's Wheel Armor and used the _Circle Sword_technique to destroy the Wyverns that were above the Mages. Erza could fly with that armor so she could take care of the Heartless that could attack from the air.

Sherry used her Doll Play Magic to create a golem with the rubble that was on the floor caused by Natsu and Gray when they were fighting. Although there wasn't a lot of it, it was enough to create a golem that could smash the Heartless without causing more damage to the city.

The Neoshadows were after Wendy, they were fast but the girl wasn't going to let them attack so she expelled a whirlwind of air from her arms to send the Heartless into the air and also destroy most of them.

Lyon created several eagles with his magic that flew to the Lance Soldiers when their lance went nuts and struck the Heartless before they could reach anyone with their weapons.

Toby was using the Paralysis Powder to immobilize all the Large Bodies he could so Yuka could finish them off with his Wave Magic attacks. When there were a lot of Heartless paralyzed, the blue-haired man shot magical bullets with his hands and destroyed some of them.

Meanwhile, Natsu was being chased by ten Morning Stars, they were going to pierce him with their spikes, but the Dragon Slayer jumped before they could hit him. He used his fire breath to burn the Heartless, but the flames didn't have any effect on them which surprised him.

"Leave them to me, _Ice-Make: Lance!_" Gray created long lances of ice that he shot toward the Heartless, but it didn't work either. Both Mages were about to be hit by the Morning Stars' spinning attack, but the something appeared around the Heartless that made them stop and then they were destroyed by Sora who used Stopga and slashed the Heartless in a breeze.

"Hey, how come we couldn't hurt them?" asked Natsu who was confused

"That kind of Heartless is immune to fire and ice spells," Sora answered.

"Really?" said Gray. "Then I guess we can't do much against them."

The Mages continued fighting, but the battle was taking too long and they were getting tired. Luckily Sora wasn't tired, so he helped the other Mages when they needed it. The Lamia Scale's Mages were amazed when they saw the Keyblade wielder slash the Heartless with ease when he helped them, he could defeat the Heartless that attacked him and help the others without missing a beat.

Suddenly the floor started to tremble and then a pair of Heartless appeared. They were the same monsters that Sora fought in Agrabah, Volcanic Lord and Blizzard Lord. The Lamia Scale team was surprised when they saw them since it was the first time a leader Heartless appeared in front of them.

"Looks like the big ones have arrived," said Gray. "Sora, do you know how to defeat those two?"

"The heartless with the red cape is weak to ice magic and the other is weak to fire magic," said Sora. "You should take care of the one who is weak to ice."

"Leave that one to me Gray," said Lyon as he walked toward the Volcanic Lord. "You can take care of the small Heartless."

"Sorry, but I'll be the one who is going to fight this Heartless," said Gray who was walking to the Volcanic Lord too.

"It seems that they are going to team up…I guess," said Sora. "Hey Natsu, want to fight the other one together?"

"You didn't even have to ask," Natsu said who was prepared to fight the Blizzard Lord. While the other Mages took care of the small Heartless, Lyon, Gray, Natsu and Sora were going to face the big ones.

The Volcanic Lord started to hurl fireballs at Gray and Lyon and they dodge them while preparing their attacks. Gray created an ice sword and started to slash the Heartless, he parried the monster's staff when it tried to hit him with it. Gray sent the Heartless to Lyon with a horizontal slash and then the Lamia Scale's Ice Mage created a sword too, although it was different from Gray's. The two combined their attacks and didn't let the Heartless counterattack. The Volcanic Lord swung its staff and summoned a great number of fireballs that started to fall from the air and were directed to all the Mages, but Gray and Lyon created a bow made of ice and shot arrows to the fireballs and destroyed them before they could reach any of the Mages who were battling the Heartless.

Meanwhile Natsu and Sora were fighting the Blizzard Lord. The Heartless used its staff to create six ice crystals that appeared around them, but Sora melted them with a Fire Spell and Natsu just wrapped his body in flames and charged at the Heartless and head-butted it at a high speed. Sora dashed forward the Blizzard Lord while swinging his Keyblade that was wreathed in flames and inflicted great damage to it. That attack sent the Heartless to Natsu so he engulfed his right fist in flames and then punched the Heartless and made it crash against a wall. The Heartless recovered and started to prepare its breath attack, but before it could release it, Sora jumped to it and put his hand and blocked him.

"Natsu, I'm going to throw the Heartless into the air," said Sora and Natsu understood immediately and prepared its own breath attack. When Sora removed his hand from the Heartless' mouth, it flew up like a deflated balloon and Natsu released from his mouth a huge amount of fire that burned the Heartless but it was still alive.

Lyon and Gray were still trying to destroy the Volcanic Lord, it was very damaged but the Heartless was enduring their attacks pretty well. The Heartless started to leap around the area and leaving fire on the ground. The Ice Mages created elevated platforms to avoid the Heartless' attack, but now instead of going after them, it went after Sora who was fighting with Natsu against the Blizzard Lord and wasn't paying attention to the other.

"Sora, watch out!" shouted Gray and the Keyblade wielder turned around to see that the Fire Heartless was about to smash him, but then he got an idea. The boy raised his sword and stabbed it in the Heartless' stomach before it could hurt him; he turned his head to see where the other Heartless was and started to spin the Volcanic Lord. Natsu was fighting against the Heartless when he saw that Sora was making the other one spin with his Keyblade and he wondered what he was planning to do. Suddenly Sora threw the Volcanic Lord at the Blizzard Lord which caught Natsu off guard, but he could move away before the Heartless was near him, although Sora aimed properly so he didn't have to do that.

The Heartless collided and that left them disoriented so Sora took the chance to finish them and aimed his Keyblade at them. The sword started to emit blue lightning and then Sora launched three spheres of electricity toward the Heartless. When the three spheres were close to each other, they mixed and formed a great ball of blue energy that created a huge explosion the moment it touched the Heartless which destroyed them completely.

"Impressive," said Lyon after watching what Sora did.

"Not bad, uh?" Gray said as he jumped off the platform he created.

"Next time let me know that you're going to do something like that!" exclaimed Natsu.

Sora laughed. "Sorry, sorry," he said, "at least we defeated the Heartless, right?"

"Yeah, that's true," Natsu said and he and Sora high-fived. After defeating the big Heartless, they went to help the other Mages who were still fighting the other Heartless. The two teams managed to eliminate all the Heartless in Hargeon Town after a long fight and a bit of destruction in the city, but fortunately it wasn't as bad as other times.

"Finally," said Lucy and then she looked at Natsu. "Don't ever say that again!"

"Why not?" he asked, "We defeated a lot of them, I'm sure that will teach them for a while."

"Good job," said Jura who just appeared behind the Mages of Lamia Scale.

"Jura-san, did you saw what happened here?" asked Lyon surprised to see him.

"Indeed, although I had to fight some Heartless who appeared suddenly before I could come here," he said and everyone looked at Natsu who just grinned widely. "Sora-dono, your abilities to defeat the Heartless are magnificent."

"Thanks," said the boy. "But the others were great too."

"Even so, without you this would have been more difficult," said Lucy.

"Did you know something more about that person who can control the Heartless?" asked Jura and both teams told him what they knew. "I see…well, now that we're done here, we should return to the guild."

"We should do that too," Erza said. "We completed all the requests Sora took."

Before leaving, Lyon approached Sora and extended his hand, the boy did the same and they shook hands.

"It's obvious that we underestimated you, Sora," he said. "Thank you for your assistance here and for what you're doing for Fiore, my team and I really appreciate it."

"I'm always glad to help," said Sora smiling.

"How can you be so strong!?" shouted Toby.

"No need to get angry," Yuka said.

"I hope we meet again soon," Lyon said. "And, of course, if you ever want to join us, Lamia Scale is always open for strong people like you."

"We will welcome you with love," said Sherry.

"Hey! Don't try to steal him from us!" Gray said.

"Get your own Keyblade wielder!" exclaimed Natsu and Sora laughed, he wondered if all the guilds were like that, but now what he had in his mind was that person who was controlling the Heartless and attacking the towns.


	7. Back at the Guild

**_Back at the Guild_**

Yesterday Team Natsu finished all the requests Sora took, the last one they had a team from the Lamia Scale guild at their side and they fought a great amount of Heartless in Hargeon Town. They also find out that there was someone controlling the Heartless and that maybe he was going to attack other towns. Both teams returned to their respective guilds after telling Yajima that the town was safe. Now Lucy was arriving at the guild with a happy expression on her face, she saw her friend Levy talking with Mirajane and went to greet them.

"Good morning, Levy-chan, Mira-san!" she said cheerfully.

"Hello, Lucy," Mirajane said smiling. "Erza told me that your team accomplished all the missions."

"Oh, that's why you are in such a good mood?" asked Levy.

"That's right!" Lucy answered. "Thanks to all the missions we did, now I have enough money to pay the rent for the next months."

"Now that you mention the money," said Mirajane, "I heard that Sora didn't want to take any reward for all the missions he took."

"Is that true?" said a surprised Levy and Lucy nodded. "Wow, why would he do something like that?"

"He said that he didn't want to get paid for something that he's supposed to do," said the Celestial Mage.

"Many people would have taken advantage of that to earn a lot of money," said Mirajane. "Sora is really sweet, isn't he?"

"Talking about Sora, do you know where he is?" asked Lucy. "I wanted to invite him to eat something since he didn't want to take any money for doing the missions."

"One hour ago he left with Gajeel and Lily," said Levy with a slightly annoyed expression. "He convinced Sora to fight with them."

"It has been only one day since we returned and he is already fighting again," said Lucy. "This boy has boundless energy."

"Well, he travels a lot, right?" said Mirajane. "I'm sure he has helped a lot of people in different worlds and is already used to it, although that makes me worry about him, I think it's a lot of work for just one person."

"He told that there were four Keyblade wielders apart from him," said Levy. "I suppose that he's not the only one around the worlds. Besides he is very responsible and mature, especially if you compare him with the people here…"

Levy said that looking at Natsu who were fighting with Gray and other members of the guild.

"Take that!"

"You're going to destroy the guild, idiot!"

"Natsu-san, please stop."

"Real men fight with their fists!"

"Yeah…" said Lucy sweat-dropping. "By the way, when did Sora tell you that there are more people with a Keyblade?"

"I asked him a couple of questions when you returned from Freesia Town," said the bluenette. "You should do the same; he knows some interesting things that don't appear in the book we read."

"I can give it a try when he comes back," said Lucy.

While the three girls talked, someone entered the guild carrying a big box that looked heavy. It was Max Alors, the Mage who is in charge of most of the guild's social activities. He walked to a table that was near the girls and put the box on it. That piqued the girls' curiosity and went to see what Max had in that box.

"Hey Max, what do you have there?" asked Lucy.

"Oh, you see," began the Sand Mage, "a lot of people have been asking these days about Sora and in the Souvenir Shop some they asked me if I had something based on him, so I ordered this."

Max opened the boy to reveal what was inside. When the girls looked inside they saw a lot of souvenirs that represented the Keyblade wielder, there were plushies, photos, figurines, necklaces with Sora's silver crown and even replicas of his Keyblade.

Lucy grabbed a plushie, looked at it and laughed. "How cute, it looks just like him."

"It's an exact copy," said Mirajane as she looked at one necklace. "I'm sure there are a lot of people who would want one of these."

"Where did you get these photos?" asked Levy with suspicious eyes. "It's like someone stalked him to take them."

"I don't know, probably it was Jason from Sorcerer Magazine," said Max shrugging. "Oh, that reminds me that he is going to come to the guild today."

"Really?" asked Lucy surprised. "The last time he didn't even look at me…"

"I suppose he prefers to interview the people who are more "wild"," said Levy and Lucy sighed with resignation.

"He must have heard about our newest member and decided to come," said Mirajane and then she noticed that Sora was entering the guild. "Look, there he is."

"_I would have never thought that Lily could grow like that_," thought Sora, he fought against the black cat and his transformation caught Sora by surprise and he wondered if Happy could do that too. He was going to take a look at the Request Board but then he saw that Max was calling him so he went to where the Sand Mage was to see what he wanted.

"Sora, I'd like you to take a look at this," Max said pointing at the box. "If it's okay with you, I'd like to sell them in the Souvenir Shop."

The Keybearer looked inside the box and he couldn't believe what was there, he was amazed when he saw all the things that were related to him and what caught his attention the most was the Keyblades that were identical to his.

"This is impressive," said Sora. "If I didn't know that this is a copy, I would have thought that it's a real one."

"It's made with a very hard material so it can last a long time," said Max with pride as Sora tested one of the Keyblades, he swung it and touched it to see how hard the material was, however when he summoned his Keyblade and used to touch the replica, the souvenir broke instantly.

"It can be as tough as you want," Levy said, "but if you compare it with a real one…"

"Sorry Max…" Sora apologized but Max didn't mind at all.

"Don't worry, I have more in the shop," he said. "So, it's okay if I sell them?"

"Sure, I don't mind at all," replied the spiky boy. Max thanked him and took the box out of the guild. After the Sand Mage left, Lucy approached Sora to talk to him.

"Hey Sora," she began, "since you don't want to accept the missions' reward, I wanted to invite you to a meal. I'm sure you're hungry after fighting Gajeel again."

"Thank you, Lucy, but-" Sora was about to say no to her offer, but then his stomach growled and the three girls giggled, much to his embarrassment.

"Looks like I'll have to prepare something for our Keyblade wielder," Mirajane said smiling at the boy and then she left.

Meanwhile Erza was informing Makarov about all the missions they did and now she was telling him about the one in Hargeon Town.

"It seems that there is someone who is traveling around Fiore and attacking the towns with the Heartless," she said. "We thought that maybe Sora knew him, but without knowing how his face is it's difficult to identify that person."

"I see…" Makarov said. He was worried since there was a possibility that Xehanort could be behind this. "Well, we can't do much until we find out who he is, but I'm sure that with Sora's help we will be able to stop him."

"Master, is there something bothering you?" asked Erza who noticed that her master was uneasy.

"No, it's nothing, don't worry," he said. "Anyway, you should be careful while you investigate, especially Sora since the Magic Council is keeping an eye on him."

"Why is that?" asked Erza with concern.

"They know about the Keyblade and also that not all the people who wielded it were good people," said Makarov. "He arrived after the Heartless appear, but even so they consider him a potential suspect. I know that he's not guilty of the Heartless attack, but the Magic Council won't take the risk. I'll talk with him about it later."

"If they arrest him, Fiore will have serious problems," Erza said while she looked at Sora who was talking with Lucy, Levy and Wendy. It seems that Lucy was asking him something and the other two wanted to ask him some things too.

"Is there any female Keyblade wielder?" asked Lucy. She thought that it would be great that there was a girl who could wield that sword too.

"Well, my friend Kairi can use one. Erza reminds me of her." said Sora which surprised the girls.

"They look alike?" asked a curious Lucy.

"Their appearances are very similar," replied Sora with a smile on his face, "and the two know how to stop a fight."

"Is there another apart from Kairi?" Levy asked.

"I think there is another one, but I am not completely sure. I just remember that she has blue hair and is older than me, but nothing else."

"Just two?" said Levy and Sora nodded. "Well, it's better than nothing."

"Oh, there's a thing I'd like to know, Sora-san," said Wendy and the boy looked at her. "How many types of magic can you use?"

"I want to know that too," Lucy said. "If I'm not mistaken I saw you using Fire and Thunder Magic."

"Let's see…" said Sora trying to remember all the types of magic he can use. "I can use Blizzard spells that would be like Gray's magic…also Cure and Aero like you Wendy."

"Really?" said the girl. "That's amazing!"

"Although my healing spells aren't as powerful as yours, they are useful to heal superficial wounds," said Sora and then he continued. "Gravity, Stop, Magnet, Reflect…"

"Stop Magic?" asked Levy interested. "Could you show it us?"

"Sure," said the boy and he started to look around and saw that some members of the guild were still fighting. He looked at Natsu that was about to use one of his attacks and summoned his Keyblade. Before the Dragon Slayer could attack, Sora used Stopga on him and Natsu froze in the air and the girls were astonished.

"Incredible!" said Levy. "You know, that would be very useful here."

"How long does it last?" Lucy asked.

"Not much," replied Sora and after a minute Natsu could move again and he was confused since he didn't know what happened, but he brushed it aside and continued fighting. Later, someone entered the guild. It was a young man with blond hair and wearing a pink t-shirt, blue jeans, brown shoes and black sunglasses.

"Cool! Fairy Tail is as wild as ever!" he exclaimed and Sora noticed him and asked the girls if they knew him.

"He's Jason," said Levy, "the reporter of Sorcerer Magazine. He is very…eccentric."

Jason started to interview all the Mages he saw in the guild, he took pictures of Erza who was wearing a dress which surprised Sora; he wondered when she changed her clothes. He went to interview Natsu but instead of an answer, Jason got a fist in his face, although it looks like he didn't mind at all. Then he went to interview, Gray and Juvia and suddenly Gajeel, who just returned with Lily, started to sing which Sora thought it was funny but a bit weird. After taking pictures of Gajeel's performance, Jason saw Wendy and ran and started to ask her questions while Carla watched him carefully.

"See what I meant?" said Levy.

"Yeah," Sora said smiling and Jason heard him and then it seemed that he was about to explode and the Keybearer started to get nervous.

"Could it be!?" exclaimed an excited Jason. "The mighty Keyblade wielder Sora, Fiore's hero, is here in front of me!"

"_How gleeful,_" Sora thought.

"Say, Keybearer Sora, what would you say that is the best quality of Fairy Tail?" asked Jason and Sora thought about it for a moment and then answer.

"The best quality of Fairy Tail is that it's a joyful and warm place, like a big family," he said and Jason wrote it in his notebook.

"Cool answer!" he said. "Now, what is your future dream?"

"I would like to create a Keyblade wielders guild in the future," said Sora. "_But that will be_ a_fter defeating Xehanort._"

"That's so cool! More awesome guilds!" said the overjoyed reporter.

"I didn't know that, but now that you said it, it suits you," said Lucy.

"You would be a great Guild Master, Sora-san," Wendy praised and Sora laughed embarrassed.

"Do you think?" he said.

"I see that you've already made some friends, Sora," said Jason. "Tell me, with whom do you have the best relationship?"

"I get along with everyone," the boy answered, "although there're still some members that I don't know."

"If you get along with Gajeel, you will get along with everyone here, believe me," said Levy.

"Despite being a legend, you're very friendly! That's so cool!" Jason said. "So, do you any love interest?"

"Okay, that's crossing the line," Sora said, but he was blushing so his attempt to avoid the topic failed and Jason wrote it in his notebook while Lucy and Levy looked at him with mischievous eyes and approached him to sat near him.

"Do you like a girl, Sora-san?" asked Wendy with sparkles on her eyes. "Who is she?"

"I…uh…" Sora didn't know what to answer and got more nervous.

"My, my, I've never seen you like this," teased Lucy. "Say, who is the lucky girl?"

"Is the Keybearer called Kairi, right?" said Levy and Sora blushed more.

"Could we change…" said a flustered Sora but the reporter interrupted him.

"Key-love, cool!" said Jason and Sora gave up since it looked like they weren't going to listen.

"Ah, young love," said Macao.

"I still remember when I fell in love for the first time," Wakaba added.

"He llllikes her," Happy said.

"Where did you all come out!?" said Sora.

Later the reporter left after interviewing other members and taking pictures of the female Mages, especially of Mirajane since she was often a model for the magazine. After being interviewed, Makarov walked to where Sora was, the boy was still being teased by some female Mages and Happy but the master "rescued" him.

"Sora, I'd like to talk to you," he said before walking to the bar of the guild. The Keybearer got up and followed the old master. Lucy wondered what could the master want from him, but she wasn't going to spy on them so she stayed with Levy.

"What is it, Master?" asked Sora.

"I just wanted to warn you," Makarov said. "There's something called Magic Council that is the main ruling body of this world. The Council possesses almost utmost control over this world, acting as a leading government of sort, also it rules all of the legal guilds scattered throughout Earth Land, overseeing them and keeping them in check."

"Did I do something wrong?" asked Sora who felt concerned since he didn't want to cause trouble to Fairy Tail.

"No, but I'm sure that the Council is watching over you," said the master. "I know that you arrived after the Heartless appeared, but for them you're someone suspicious since it's been a long time since a Keyblade wielder comes here."

"I understand, not all of us are on the good side," Sora said. "I'll be more careful from now on."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Makarov and he noticed that the spiky boy still wanted to talk about something. "Is there something wrong?"

"I suppose that you already know about what happened in Hargeon Town, right?" asked the Keybearer.

"Erza told me about it," he replied. "Why?"

"Listen, I was in another place before coming here that had the same problem with the Heartless," Sora explained, "at first it was normal, I just had to eliminate all the Heartless, but after one week things started to get more serious. I fought against one of Xehanort's allies and him."

"Master Xehanort?" asked Makarov with a serious expression.

"Not exactly," said Sora. "It was his young-self."

"Ah yes, I talked with Yen Sid when you were out," Makarov told Sora. "He explained me about the events of the last years."

"It's unlikely that he appears again," said Sora, "but if he does, I don't think we can keep hiding his existence to the others."

"Don't worry boy," Makarov said. "If it's necessary, I'll let you tell them about him, but if they want to take part in that battle, I will be the one to tell them that they can't."

"All right, thanks Master," Sora said.

"By the way, I heard that you wanted to create a guild with Keyblade wielders as members," said Makarov. "When did you get that idea?"

"Oh, it was when I joined Fairy Tail," said Sora looking at the Mages. "I hope I can do it soon, although I don't want to leave this guild either."

"Well, there are people who are members of different kind of guilds," said the old man. "As long as you don't join another Mages Guild, you'll be still a Fairy Tail member and, of course, when you create it, your members could lend us a hand once in a while."

"Sure," said the boy relieved and then he got up. "I should take a look at the board."

"You should take a break," Makarov said. "Besides, there aren't missions for you yet, although you can always travel around Fiore if you don't want to wait for requests, but if I were you I'd rest. You've been sleeping in Natsu and Happy's house, right?"

"Yes, it's a bit small for two people," Sora said feeling a bit bad for occupying their house. "Why do you ask?"

"I thought that you could feel bad for occupying their house," said the master which scared Sora and he wondered if his master could read minds, "so I talked with the owner of Fairy Hills, the dormitory of the guild, and, after telling him who you are, he gladly accepted to give you a room for free while you're here. It's close to the guild so you won't have to walk much."

"Wow, thanks for the favor," said Sora.

"Oh, you're going to stay on Fairy Hills, Sora?" asked Mirajane who heard their conversation. "I hope to see you there then."

"You also sleep in Fairy Hills, Mirajane?" Sora asked and she nodded and giggled which confused the boy.

"Is there something that you're not telling me, Master?" asked Sora who was starting to suspect.

"It's a female dormitory," said Makarov and Sora looked at him dumfounded.

"Wait a moment!" he exclaimed. "I can't stay there, it's not right!"

"Come on, don't be like that, I already told Natsu that you'll be sleeping there," he said, "and besides it's the only place that has free rooms right now and I know that you won't try anything since you already have a girlfriend."

"Oh, I didn't know that," said the white-haired woman. "I'd really like to meet her someday."

"_Here we go again…_" thought Sora. "I guess I have no option…I'll stay there, but just for sleep, nothing more."

"Well, if you're willing to," said Makarov with a perverted face, "you could spy on the girls for me and…"

"Master, if you use Sora for that I'll get angry," said Mirajane with a stern expression and putting her hands on her hips.

Sora sweat-dropped, he liked his new master, but he was a bit weird sometimes. Now he was wondering what would happen if his friends find out that he's going to sleep in a female dormitory. He knew that Riku would annoy him continuously, Tidus and Wakka probably would go crazy or something like that and he didn't even want to think about how would react Selphie or Kairi. He stopped thinking about that and suddenly someone patted his back, he didn't know why but his body felt like if someone punched it with an iron gauntlet.

"Hey, you're Natsu's new friend, Sora, right?" asked the person who almost breaks Sora's back. The boy turned to see that it was the man who usually talked with the Fire Dragon Slayer, the tall and muscular man with reddish-orange hair.

"Ye-yes," said Sora. "_My back still hurts a bit and he patted it lightly, how strong is this guy?_"

"I'm Gildarts, nice to meet you," said the man grinning. "Natsu told me good things about you."

"A pleasure, Gildarts," said Sora smiling.

"He's the strongest Mage in Fairy Tail," said Mirajane.

"_No kidding,_" thought Sora and then he noticed that the Mage looked at him as if he were studying him.

"So this is a Keyblade wielder, huh?" he said as he walked around Sora. "It's the first time I see one in all my life."

"Gildarts," began Makarov, "where have you been these last two days? I haven't seen you until now."

"Oh, well I was visiting a small town that is a bit far from here and I saved a group of ladies from those little dark monsters and stayed there to celebrate it," said Gildarts with a goofy face.

Sora let out a small laugh; he thought that despite being the strongest Mage in Fairy Tail, Gildarts had an easygoing and laid-back personality, but he wouldn't want to anger him since with that strength he was sure that Gildarts could obliterate his opponents if he wanted to. The Keyblade wielder sighed and began to think what he could do tomorrow."Maybe I should take the train in the morning to see where it takes me," he said.


	8. Excommunicated

_**Excommunicated**_

Sora woke up in his room, he slept in the female dormitory of his guild, Fairy Hills and when he opened his eyes he felt as if he were in forbidden territory. Yesterday when he arrived at the dormitory, Erza was waiting him in the entrance; it looks like Makarov told her to show Sora his room. The redhead noticed Sora's nervousness and told him to relax since all the occupants of the dormitory knew that he was going to stay there and they didn't mind which surprised the Keyblade wielder.

On their way to Sora's room, the boy met more members of Fairy Tail; one of them was a young woman with long, straight green hair called Bisca and another woman with light brown hair called Evergreen. Bisca looked kind to Sora and when he mentioned to Evergreen that she looked like a fairy because of her clothes, she immediately liked the boy. Before reaching Sora's room, they encountered with another girl called Laki and, Sora didn't know how but she ended up mentioning Kairi and, for some reason, Erza started shaking violently the Keybearer and stuttering that she was happy for him. Sora knew that she was socially awkward sometimes but that was too much.

Sora put on his clothes and started to walk quietly, but not like a thief or something like that since it would be very suspicious and could create a misunderstanding. He wanted to leave Fairy Hills without being noticed so he woke up early, he had planned to go to Magnolia Station since he wanted to use the train and travel a bit on his own. He was really close to the door that led outside when he heard someone saying his name.

"Sora-san?" he heard and deduced that it was Wendy since she was the only one who used that honorific with him. The boy turned his head and saw the young Dragon Slayer alongside her cat partner.

"Good morning, Wendy, Carla," he said.

"You woke up pretty early," Carla remarked. "Had you planned to go somewhere today?"

"Well, yes," answered Sora. "Besides, I wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. When I'm here, I feel like an intruder."

"To be honest, I don't like the idea of a boy staying in a female dormitory," Carla admitted, "but you don't look like someone who would do weird things so I can overlook it."

"I also trust in you, Sora-san," Wendy said. "Besides, you like your friend Kairi-san, right?"

"Not you too, Wendy…" Sora said and the young girl smiled cutely at him.

"So, where are you going?" asked the white cat.

"To the city's station, I wanted to travel a bit today," answered the boy. "Since I'm a member of Fairy Tail we've been doing group missions so I thought that it would be good to be on my own for a while."

"Oh, will you be okay alone?" asked Wendy who was concerned about Sora's safety.

"He can defend himself quite well," Carla assured. "Remember that you also did the same thing when you joined the guild."

"But I wasn't alone," said the bluenette, "Happy and Freed-san were with me."

"Don't worry about me, Wendy, I'll be fine," Sora said with a smile on his face.

"Shall I tell the others that you're traveling alone today?" asked Wendy.

"Sure, it's not like this is a secret," replied Sora and he left the building after saying goodbye to them.

The boy walked toward the train station, he wondered where he could go since Fiore was so big and he only knew the few towns he visited with his team. He decided that he was going to visit a farther town, he always liked to explore after all and if he gets lost he could always use the Gummi Ship to return to Magnolia.

When Sora arrived at Magnolia Station he saw that there were many people in the station than the day he and the others went to Freesia Town and it could be because what they did on their last missions. They managed to clear many nearby towns and the residents felt safer now. Later, a man with a megaphone was saying that one train was going to leave. Sora didn't hear the name of the town but, since he didn't plan a specific route, he boarded that train.

Meanwhile in Fairy Tail, everyone was doing what they usually do.

"Then he shot three balls made of blue lighting that destroyed the Heartless and caused a huge explosion," said Natsu. He was telling to the other Mages how Sora and he fought against the leaders Heartless in Hargeon.

"Are you serious?" said Warren with disbelief. "Lightning Magic, too?"

"A man can use many types of magic!" Elfman exclaimed.

"I see that you guys fought a lot of Heartless there," Max said.

"Aye, that was Natsu's fault," Happy told him. "He provoked them."

Lucy was talking with Master Makarov about the world's Keyhole, she asked him if he knew where it was, but the old master didn't know it. She knew that the sooner Sora closes the Keyhole, the better, so she wanted to help him with his search.

"Lu-chan," Levy said and Lucy looked at the bluenette. "Have you seen Sora?"

"Now that you said it, I haven't seen him today," Lucy said. "Why? Did you want to see him?"

"I wanted to invite him to go on a mission with Shadow Gear," Levy told her. "The mission is a bit difficult and if the Heartless appear I'd like to have him at our side."

"Maybe he's taking a break somewhere," Gray commented. He was sitting near the Celestial Mage and heard their conversation. "However, it's weird that he hasn't come here yet."

"Erza, have you seen him?" Lucy asked. The redhead Mage was sitting next to Gray and was eating a strawberry cake.

"The last time I saw him was yesterday evening," she answered.

"If you are looking for Sora-san, he went to the train station this morning," Wendy said and the other Mages looked surprised at her.

"The train station?" repeated everyone and Wendy nodded.

"He said that he wanted to travel on his own today," added Carla.

"Well, there aren't missions for him yet, so if he arrives at some place with Heartless he could kill two birds with one stone," said Gray nonchalantly.

"Why do you sound so unconcerned?" questioned Lucy who was a little worried about the Keyblade wielder.

"And why are you worried?" countered Gray. "According to Master, he's the best when it comes to fight against the Heartless."

"Yes, but…"

"Don't worry, Lucy," Erza said with a reassuring smile. "He will be fine."

"I noticed that you have got used to seeing him around the guild with ease," Makarov spoke and the Mages looked at their master, "but I remind you that he won't be always here."

"What a way to kill the mood, old man," Gray groaned.

"But Master is right," said Erza with a serious tone. "Surely Fiore isn't the only place that has problems with the Heartless."

"Come on, don't be like that," said Lucy. "He can always come back to visit us, right?"

"That's right," said the master, "but still, he is someone who puts his life in danger continuously so we'll have to trust that he'll overcome all the difficulties of his travels."

"Then we'll have to find a way to make sure he stays alive," said the Ice Mage.

Sora was watching the desert landscape through the window, it has been two hours since he left and he noticed that he was a bit far from Magnolia, but he didn't mind at all. He started to think about the mysterious person of Hargeon Town. According to the owner of the shop the person was tall and corpulent, so Sora started to think about the people he knew and that could match that description and suddenly the image of a certain big cat that worked with an old hag came up to his mind.

"I hope not," he muttered with a slightly irritated face since he was tired to see that guy in all the places he was. Then the Keybearer remembered the last time he saw Pete and started to look closely at the window for a minute and suddenly he fogged the window with his breath and started to write numbers. When the boy finished you could read "42-42-564" in the crystal, however nothing happened and he sighed with resignation.

"_Maybe I did it wrong,_" Sora thought and then he felt that the train began to stop. Sora saw that he arrived in a small town in the middle of the desert. The boy had to cover his eyes when he got out of the train so he put on his hood and started to walk around the town. It looked like the town wasn't attacked by the Heartless, but the Keyblade wielder wanted to stay in the town for a little while since it was really quiet. He saw a small restaurant and decided to go inside but then he remembered that he hadn't any money that was useful in this world so he turned around and continued walking.

Suddenly Sora overheard some people saying the word "Heartless" so he immediately sat on a bench that was near them to hear their conversation. The Keybearer heard that one of them saw a large group of Heartless approaching the town from the east and a man wearing a brown cape went to fight them alone. Without stopping to think, Sora started running to the east to help that man and hoped that it wasn't too late.

Running is the only thing Sora was doing and he couldn't find anyone, but he wasn't going to give up so he continued and after a few steps he saw lightning coming out from a place.

"_Lightning in the middle of the desert?_" he thought and went to see what it was. He reached a sand hill and saw the Heartless and someone who was fighting them. Sora saw how the man destroyed the Heartless with his magic and it looked like he didn't need any help, but if the Keybearer doesn't intervene, that man won't ever finish the battle since there were a lot of them so Sora went to lend him a hand.

Suddenly a huge Heartless emerged from the sand; it was a black and red colored Antlion and it was about to tackle the man, but before it could reach him, Sora used his Keyblade to stop the Heartless and then he pushed it back. The Heartless dived into the sand to prepare another attack. Sora destroyed all the Heartless who were surrounding the man in a flash and then he turned to look at the person who has been fighting against them; he was blond and had a distinctive lightning bolt-shaped scar on his right eye.

"You…" began the man but Sora interrupted him.

"Sora," he said as he removed his hood. "And you?"

The man doubted at first, but since Sora helped him, the least he could do was to tell the boy his name.

"Laxus," he replied without changing his serious face. "Are you…"

Before Laxus could finish what he was going to say the Antlion emerged from the sand again and looked at the two people in front of him.

"How about we take care of that first?" Sora suggested and Laxus nodded and the two prepared to fight.

Laxus jumped and generated balls of lightning on his fingers, which he sent towards the Heartless, however the Antlion created a sand barrier that protected him from the lightning although two balls could hit him with the explosion but they didn't damage the Heartless much. The Antlion counterattacked sending walls of sand to Laxus and Sora but they could dodge the attack and this time the Keybearer was the one who attacked. Sora hit the Heartless several times and then the Antlion started to get out completely from the sand to escape, but Sora climbed on its head and started to hit the Antlion's head with force. Sora stunned the Heartless and jumped away to let Laxus attack. The Mage created an orb of lightning around his fist and punches the monster repeatedly and managed to get it out of the sand.

Sora landed next to Laxus and saw that the Antlion recovered and started to spin its body, creating a whirlwind shield. The Heartless started to move to his opponents while tossing cube-shaped bombs. The Lightning Mage was about to explode the bombs before they could hurt Sora and him, but the Keyblade wielder told him to wait, that it would be better if they returned them to the one who threw them. Then the two started to return the bombs to the Heartless while they moved back so the whirlwind couldn't touch them. Laxus kicked the last bomb and the shield vanished which gave them the opportunity to attack.

Sora wrapped the Keyblade in ice and then hurled it toward the Heartless. The sword looped around the Antlion, leaving the ice on its body and then Laxus shot a sphere of lightning with his hands that covered the Heartless in lightning when it touched its body. When the lightning touched the ice that covered the Antlion's body, it broke its armor and the two fighters noticed. It looks like the Heartless was weaker to Laxus' Lighting Magic after being frozen by Sora's Ice Magic so they were going to take advantage of it.

They were going to attack the Heartless at the same time, but then it hid in the sand before they could land an attack on it. The two started to look around to spot the Heartless and then it appeared behind them and red energy started to appear around his head. The energy gathered in its mouth and when it finished, the Heartless shot a large, red laser from its mouth and was directed to its enemies. Sora was going to use Reflega to protect Laxus and him from the attack, but before he could cast it, the Mage released lightning from his mouth in the form of a concentrated, destructive blast that clashed with the red laser and went through it. Sora could swear that his attack was the same type of breath technique that Natsu and Wendy use.

The Antlion received the attack completely, but it was still alive but paralyzed so Sora took the chance to attack it. He stuck his sword in the Heartless' head and with a great amount of magic, he froze the Antlion in a block of ice and then he, with a great effort, threw the Heartless into the air. Then Laxus raised his hands and formed lightning between them, forming a very large spear out of it and then he launched the spear at the Heartless. The spear hit the frozen Heartless and caused a bright explosion that destroyed it instantly. The Keyblade wielder watched how the heart inside the Antlion ascended and then disappeared.

"_It looks like boarding that train was a good idea after all,_" thought Sora and then he noticed that Laxus was looking at him.

"You are the kid I heard about," he said and Sora mentally groaned at the word "kid". "The Keyblade wielder who joined Fairy Tail a few days ago."

"My name is Sora," the boy said, "nice to meet you, Laxus."

"I heard that you were strong," Laxus said. "It looks like the rumors were true."

"Thanks, although it was obvious that you could fight against the Heartless without help," Sora said with a smile. "But if I hadn't intervened, they wouldn't have stopped appearing."

A small smile appeared on Laxus face. "Thanks for the assistance then," he said. "Listen, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, go ahead," Sora answered.

"Why did you want to join Fairy Tail?" Laxus asked.

"Well, it was the master of the guild the one who wanted me to be a member of Fairy Tail," replied Sora and Laxus didn't expect that answer.

"_Gramps asked him to join?_" he thought surprised.

"The reason I accepted the offer it's because I saw that everyone get along and because it was a warm place," Sora said. "Like a family."

"A family, huh?" repeated the Mage closing his eyes.

"What's wrong?" asked Sora.

"Nothing, I liked your answer," Laxus said bluntly and he opened his eyes. "Do you know the Raijinshū, by any chance? It's a team of Fairy Tail."

"I don't think so," said the spiky boy.

"The members of the team are called Freed, Bickslow and Evergreen," Laxus said and then he grabbed an envelope from his pocket. "I'd like you to give them this letter that says that I'm fine."

"Oh, I know Evergreen," said Sora and he grabbed the envelope. "Okay, I'll give them this."

"Thanks again," Laxus said as he put on his cape. "Until we meet again, kiddo."

Sora saw how the Mage left and then he looked at the envelope. He wondered why Laxus didn't go to the guild and talked to them face to face, but maybe he had his reasons so he decided to not tell the others about him.

"Did he call me a kid again?"

* * *

Now Sora was in Magnolia, arriving at the guild after boarding the train to return. He wanted to give the letter as soon as possible so the first thing he was going to do is to look for the Raijinshū. When he entered the building he was greeted by Mirajane.

"Welcome back, Sora," she said with a smile. "Natsu and the others have been asking about you."

"Hello Mira," Sora said. "Hey, do you know where the Raijinshū is?"

The young woman didn't expect that question, but she answered politely and pointed at the table where Evergreen, along with two more people, was. Sora thanked her and went to talk to the team. Sora saw that Evergreen, which has changed her look, was talking with two men. One had a very long green hair that covered part of his face and his right eye and the other had half of his face covered by a metal visor.

"Excuse me," said Sora to catch their attention and the three looked at him.

"Ah, it's Sora, I'm glad to see you here," said Evergreen who remembered that Sora called her a fairy when they met at Fairy Hills.

"Oh, you're the young Keyblade wielder, right?" said the man with the metal visor. "Nice to meet you, I'm Bickslow."

"I'm Freed, it's a pleasure," said the green-haired man politely. "Did you want something from us?"

"Yes, I met someone who wanted me to give you this," Sora said and handed the letter to Freed.

Meanwhile Mira walked to where Team Natsu and told them that Sora has returned.

"He's back?" asked Lucy and Mirajane nodded.

"Great, I'm going to ask him if he fought a big Heartless," Natsu said.

"You are hopeless," said Gray and then he noticed that Erza was staring at something. "Erza, what is it?"

"He's talking with the Raijinshū," Erza said and everyone looked at Sora to confirm what she said.

"It's true, I wonder what they're talking about," Lucy said puzzled.

"He asked me about them when he arrived," Mirajane told them, "but he didn't say why."

The Raijinshū read the letter and they couldn't believe what it said, they didn't expect Laxus to do something like that and suddenly Freed started to cry from happiness which surprised Sora, it looks like Laxus was someone important for them.

"Did you really see Laxus? Could you describe him?" asked Evergreen who wanted to confirm that Sora met Laxus.

"Well, he was blond, had a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his right eye," described Sora, "and was really strong, we fought together against a huge Heartless."

"That's our Laxus!" said Bickslow.

"We're eternally grateful, Sora," said Freed grabbing the boy's shoulders, "and since you're now Laxus' friend, you should join the Raijinshū and be one of his personal bodyguards."

"Wait a moment, Freed!" Natsu exclaimed who, fortunately, just heard the part about Freed offering Sora to join his team. "Sora is a member of my team, you can't have him!"

The two argued and then started fighting and Sora looked at them not very surprised, but he wondered how many times Natsu started a fight in the guild. Then the Keybearer felt that someone was touching his shoulder to catch his attention and when he turned he saw Levy and two young men behind her. One had orange hair and wore an open, light-brown coat, and the other had black hair kept in an unusual hairstyle and wore a simple white shirt and a pair of distinctive belts crossing his chest, each passing over one of his shoulders.

"Hey, Levy, what's up?" Sora greeted, "You guys are Jet and Droy, right?"

"That's right," the two said.

"If I'm not mistaken, you three are a team," Sora mentioned. "At least that's what Lucy told me."

"Yup, we are Shadow Gear," Jet said and Droy and he did a pose which made Sora laugh and Levy sweat-dropped.

"I see, that's a cool name," Sora said smiling. "So, did you want to tell me something?"

"Well, we wanted to go on a mission," Levy explained. "It's about recovering a stolen ring and the band of thieves that stole it is big."

"It's well known that you haven't failed any missions since you joined Fairy Tail," said Jet.

"And if the Heartless appear during the job, you'd be a great help," Droy added. "So, what do you say? Would you come with us?"

Sora saw that Natsu was too busy fighting Freed, besides there weren't requests that were specifically about Heartless so it would be a good idea to take other jobs and, since he is a magnet to Heartless, they will probably show their faces while going on other missions.

"Sure, I'll go with you," Sora said and the three members thanked him.

Jet and Droy went to where Mirajane was to tell her that Sora and Shadow Gear were going on a job.

"Going with Sora so you guys can get a high reward easily, huh?" Gray joked.

"Hey, don't be an idiot, Gray," said a slightly upset Jet.

"Relax, I was joking," said the Ice Mage. "Return him to us in one piece, okay?"

"Are you going on a mission with Sora?" asked Erza and then she put a stern and scary face. "I expect you to do a good job and don't let him do all the work."

"Y-yes, Erza, don't worry," Droy said.

"Hey, what is taking you so long?" asked Sora who approached them because he saw that the two men were standing in front of the redhead Mage.

"Nothing, let's go!" replied Jet as Droy and he pushed Sora out of the guild.

* * *

**That's chapter eight, I wanted to put Laxus in this story so here he is. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and write a review if you want**


	9. Another Track

_**Another Track**_

Sora, along with team Shadow Gear, was looking at a small cabin that was at the base of a mountain. They had to retrieve a stolen ring from a band of thieves and, according to the request, the last time someone saw the band it was around the area Sora and the others were now.

"It looks very small," Jet said. "Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes, without a doubt," answered Levy looking at the request.

"The ring might be in there," said Droy as Jet and he approached the cabin. "We should take a look."

Levy and Sora walked to the door while the other two inspected the cabin and looked through the windows to see if there was someone inside.

"The thieves of this band…" began Sora, "they're not Mages, right?"

"No," Levy answered, "but still, they are a lot so we have to be careful. Anyway, try to not beat them up very much."

"Hey, who do you think I am? Natsu?" asked Sora raising an eyebrow and Levy just giggled as she got near to the cabin's door.

"It looks clear," said the Plant Mage and Sora started to open the door slowly. Levy said that it was weird that it was opened, so they entered the cabin carefully since the thieves could have set traps, but when they were inside the cabin, everything was normal.

"Nothing…" Droy said. "There are just some supplies and nothing else."

"Let's look for the ring," said the bluenette. "If we can find it before they come here, we will finish this mission sooner than expected."

They started to look for the object, but as much as they searched, it wasn't there and Shadow Gear looked disappointed.

"Man, I hope the request isn't a prank," Jet said.

"I don't think so," said the team leader, "but the information could be wrong."

Sora was still looking for some clue when he noticed that on the floor there was a piece of cloth with some stones on it. He approached the cloth and touched it, it looks like there was something under the cloth and when he removed it, he found out a secret path.

"Hey, take a look at this," Sora said and the three Mages went to where he was and saw the path.

"Hey, nice job," said Jet and he patted Sora's back.

"Shall we go in?" asked Droy. "Or should we wait for them?"

"They don't know that we found the path, so we should take advantage of that and attack by surprise," Levy said with decision.

"All right then," said Sora and he jumped into the hole. The other three jumped after him and they saw that the path led to the mountain, it looks like the hideout was bigger than they thought. They started walking and found an area that could be a lookout, however there wasn't anyone guarding the entrance to the lair so they continued. Sora stopped, he saw a note nailed on a small board and he took it.

"What does it say?" asked Levy.

"The ring was successfully stolen so we must find a place to sell it," Sora read.

"Then we're in the right place," Droy said.

"Wait, it also says that someone came here to make a deal with them," said the Keybearer.

"Oh, great…" muttered Jet. "Maybe they've already finished and that's why no one is here."

"Anyway, let's continue," Levy said as he opened the door. "We've got to be sure that they are gone before leaving."

The rest of the hideout was, like the cabin, empty, there was no one in sight and the group was starting to become frustrated. They reached a wide area that had a small path which led to a superior level and when they were going to go up, a noise could be heard behind them. The four turned to see a green-colored Soldier Heartless.

"_Deserters…_" Sora thought. "_It's weird that only one appeared, unless…_"

Sora looked up and saw at least forty Deserters that were going to attack them, he warned the others and they could jump just in time to avoid the attack. All the Heartless started to run really fast around the area and trying to the Mages. Shadow Gear noticed that the Heartless were incredibly fast, so they came up with a plan to defeat them quickly. Levy wrote the word "Oil" in the air, producing extensive amounts of sticky black oil out of the word which immobilized half of the Heartless, then Droy threw seeds on the ground and then large vines with fist appeared and destroyed the Heartless that couldn't move. The other Deserters were defeated by Jet who used his High Speed Magic to increase his speed significantly. The Keybearer was impressed by their teamwork, maybe they weren't as strong as Natsu's team, but they knew how to work together.

"Not bad, huh?" said Jet.

"That's how Shadow Gear works!" Droy said.

"Nice, but you could have left some alive for me," Sora joked and then other Heartless appeared behind the Mages, they were five Sergeants and were preparing an attack so Sora aimed at it with his sword which surprised the team of Mages.

"Hey, what are you-"

"Get down," Sora interrupted Jet and the three Mages crouched. The Keybearer threw his weapon at the Sergeants which stunned them and then he cast Thundaga and finished them off. The team Shadow Gear looked behind them to see how the monsters disappeared.

"Amazing, I knew that it was a good idea to bring you with us," Levy said and Sora smiled, then he noticed that Droy was walking to where the Sergeants appeared.

"Droy, what is it?" asked the boy.

"I think I found it," the Mage answered as he grabbed something. It was the ring they looked for, it seems that one of the Sergeants dropped it when Sora defeated them.

"This is the stolen ring, right?" asked Jet and Levy looked closely at it.

"It is…" she said, "but why did a Heartless have it?"

Sora was now asking himself the same question, then he came up with a possible answer and he didn't like it.

"You said that the band of thieves was big, right?" asked Sora and the team nodded. "How many members are in the band?"

"Around forty or fifty thieves," Levy replied and then she realized what Sora was thinking. "Do you think they were turned into Heartless?"

"Yeah…" he said and then heard something that came from the upper level. He looked at Shadow Gear and they nodded. Sora started to go up with the Keyblade in his hand and followed by the team, when the group reached the end of the path, they arrived at a small room with a lot of stolen objects and there was someone hiding inside of a cage, for some reason he locked himself there.

"Hey, is one of the thieves!" Jet said.

"Why are you in there?" asked Droy to the thief.

"Hiding from those monsters," he answered. "Our leader opened the door of our hideout because someone was going to make a deal with us, but instead he sent those dark creatures here."

"Did you see his face!?" asked Sora suddenly which startled the others a little.

"No, I just saw how he left and when I entered here I saw all my comrades turned into those things," he said and then he took a paper from his pocket and handed it to Sora. "I heard that you defeated them, so you can have it, that guy dropped it before leaving."

Sora saw that it was a note which said that the next objective of the man who attacked the thieves, he was going to that location soon.

"It's a bit far from our guild," Droy said who was also looking at the note.

"You should go now," Jet said. "We will take care of the thief and the things he has stolen."

"But return to Fairy Tail first and tell Natsu and the others about it, they should know where to go," Levy said. "And take care, okay?"

"Sure, thanks!" said the boy and started running to arrive at the guild as soon as possible.

* * *

Sora arrived at the guild, he showed the note to Erza and she called immediately to the rest of the team and told them about what the note said. Now they were going to the location of the note by train. The Keybearer was now outside of one of the train's carriages trying to get some fresh air and Natsu was with him, although the Dragon Slayer was outside because he felt really sick.

"You will get worse if you stay here," said Sora and Natsu just made some noises to answer him. Then someone opened the door that led to Sora and Natsu were, it was Wendy and she said that since there was still a long way go, the young Dragon Slayer wanted to cast Troia on Natsu. The spiky boy saw how Natsu started to jump with joy after Wendy casted that spell on him, the Fire Dragon Slayer started to run around the train, bothering some of the passengers but he stopped when Erza hit him.

"I saw that coming," said Sora and then he noticed that Wendy was a bit nervous, as if she wanted to say something. "What is it, Wendy?"

"Oh, I…umm," the girl stuttered a little, "did Natsu-san tell you about Igneel?"

After the bluenette asked that, the Keybearer remembered the two nights he stayed in Natsu and Happy's house, they told him about the dragon that took care of him and how he disappeared.

"Yes, he did and he also told me about Grandeeney and Metalicana," Sora answered, which surprised Wendy. "I told him that I've only encountered two dragons during my travels and one was as big as Happy and Carla and the other was just a Heartless that looked like a dragon, so it didn't talk and, obviously, wasn't very friendly towards people."

"You have seen a dragon!?" Wendy asked enthusiastically.

"_She reacted like Natsu,_" Sora thought. "Yes, but I don't know if he knows your dragons since he's from another world, but I promised Natsu that I would ask him about them."

Wendy's face lightened up. "Thank you so much!" she said with glee.

"Anything for my friends, right?" said Sora as he patted Wendy's head.

Suddenly the boy heard a passenger screaming and when he looked at his left, he saw that a flying Heartless was charging at him so he summoned the Keyblade and destroyed it before it could attack. The bluenette startled when Sora drew his weapon, but when she saw the Heartless she understood why he did that. The two saw how a group of Heartless was approaching the train, they were Air Battlers, Aerial Masters, Artful Flyers and Sky Grapplers. The Keybearer knew that those Heartless were immune to wind spells, therefore the Sky Dragon Slayer's attacks won't have any effect on them so he ran inside the train with her to look for the others and closed the door of that led to where they were. The team regrouped in the space between two carriages.

"Wendy, are you okay?" asked Carla and the girl nodded.

"This is bad," said Lucy, "there are a lot of people here."

"We must be really careful when we start fighting," Erza said. "I closed the door to the carriages, so the Heartless won't be able to attack the passengers unless we let them break the windows. We will have to get on the carriages to fight them so be careful not to fall."

"Hey…" said Natsu who was staring at the sky.

"What's wrong, Natsu?" asked Gray. "If you're worried about your motion sickness then you'll have to defeat them quickly."

"No, look," the Fire Dragon Slayer said while pointing at the sky. When the team looked up, they saw what appeared to be a large, blue dragon with a long, curled tail. The Mages and Exceeds were astonished until they saw the Heartless Emblem in the dragon's lower jaw.

"Is that the Heartless you told us about?" Happy asked Sora.

"Yeah…" he answered. "This is going to be troublesome."

"Here it comes," said Lucy because the Storm Rider was flying towards them. The Keyblade wielder jumped on one of the carriages which surprised the others.

"Hey, what are you going to do?" asked Gray.

"I'm going to take a ride," Sora replied with a smile.

At first they didn't understand what the boy meant, but they got it the moment Sora grabbed the Heartless' tail when it got near the carriage. As soon as Sora grabbed its tail, the Storm Rider started to ascend and the others saw how it flew away from them with Sora on its back.

"Even he is crazy sometimes," muttered Lucy since she couldn't believe what Sora just did.

"We must defeat the other Heartless now that the dragon is away," Erza said.

"Happy, let's help Sora!" Natsu said.

"Aye, sir!" the cat replied as he grabbed the Dragon Slayer and flew towards the Storm Rider.

"Carla, let's go with them," Wendy said. The white cat was reluctant at first but when she saw the determination on the girl's face, she accepted to take her. Erza, Gray and Lucy stayed in the train since there must be someone who takes care of the Heartless that are flying around the carriages. Meanwhile, Sora was crouched on the Storm Rider's back to keep his balance.

"I hope not to fall," Sora said and then the Heartless moved suddenly which almost made the Keybearer trip. The spiky boy realized that it was Natsu the one who made the Storm Rider move by punching it, he was flying with Happy's help and Wendy and Carla were also with them.

"Hey, if you want to beat a dragon, you'll need Dragon Slayers at your side," said Natsu with a grin on his face and Wendy nodded in agreement.

"No argument here, but-" Sora stopped talking because the Heartless made a sudden movement. The Storm Rider did a barrel roll to shake the Keybearer off, which scared the Mages who were looking at the monster since they thought that the boy was going to fall, but fortunately he clung onto one of the spikes protruding from the Heartless' back to avoid falling to the ground. Sora's friends sighed in relief when they saw him still on the dragon's back and when it was going to do it again, Wendy attacked the Heartless.

"_Tenryū no Kagizume!_" the girl said as generated large winds from her foot while swinging her leg down on the dragon. The Storm Rider received the attack and then it charged at the bluenette, but Sora hit the Heartless' horns and made it slow down so Carla could dodge the attack. Suddenly the dragon shot lightning bolts from its wings that pursued the Dragon Slayers, the bolts were really fast but they could avoid them thanks to Wendy's Vernier spell. Now that their speed was increased, Natsu and Happy took the opportunity and dashed to the dragon; the Fire Dragon Slayer engulfed his fist in flames and punched its head.

Then Sora did the same, wrapped the Keyblade in flames and jumped in front of the Storm Rider's face. The Keybearer performed a technique similar to Ragnarok, he hit the face of the Heartless several times, but instead of shooting magical bullets at the end of the combo, he shot a blast of fire that burned the dragon's face, causing it great damage.

The Storm Rider was about to send Sora to the ground using its tail now that the boy was in the air and couldn't move properly, but Wendy blocked the tail using the same technique she used before. Natsu grabbed Sora's hand and threw him to the Heartless and the boy landed on its back. The Heartless got tired of being beat by Sora and the Dragon Slayers so it started to descend and approaching the train with great speed.

"Damn, it's going to attack the others!" Natsu said.

Now the dragon was flying next to the train, and the Mages who were on the top of the carriages fighting the other Heartless obviously noticed it. The vehicle was going faster than before and the Heartless was flying as fast as it so Sora was finding difficult to keep his balance. He was going to grab one of the spikes again, but then a lightning bolt struck the boy and made him fall from the Heartless, however when he was about to hit the ground, he felt something on his wrist. It was Lucy's magic whip, it seems that the blonde saw what happened and she could save him just in time. The girl pulled and Sora could reach the carriage where the Celestial Mage was.

"Sora, are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes, thank you, Lucy," Sora replied while looking at the Storm Rider that had flew up and was fighting against the Dragon Slayers. Then he realized that the other Heartless were gone, it looks like Lucy and the other two have already defeated them, the boy also noticed that Lucy had someone at her side, a tall, black-haired man wearing a horse costume.

"Another Spirit?" asked Sora.

"Oh, yes, he's Sagittarius," Lucy answered.

"A pleasure, moshi moshi," said the Celestial Spirit while saluting to the air.

"_Who is he saluting to?_" thought the boy and then he saw Gray and Erza who were running to where they were.

"Bombs!" the redhead shouted and Lucy and Sora looked up to see that the dragon was throwing bombs at the train, however Sagittarius was quick to react and shot a lot of arrows that destroyed all the explosives before they landed on the train.

"Well done, Sagittarius!" Lucy praised.

"Of course, moshi moshi," said the horse-man before returning to the Celestial Spirit World.

"Hey, that thing is still alive?" Gray asked looking at the Storm Rider.

"Yeah, but after all the attacks it received, the Heartless should be almost defeated," the Keybearer said. Then the Storm Rider descended, along with the Dragon Slayers, and followed the train from behind, it looks like it was charging up power with its horns. He told the others that it was going to shoot a massive energy beam that could make them fall from the train and destroy the vehicle. Erza equipped her Adamantine Armor and when the Storm Rider shot the beam, she blocked it using her two shields. The armor was enough to block the attack, then the Heartless roared and flew to the first carriage, it was going to lunge at its enemies to make them fall.

"Guys, watch out!" Natsu said as the dragon dived across the carriages. Sora recognized the attack since the Heartless did it the last time he fought against it. Erza, Gray and Lucy got down from the carriages, but Sora stayed.

"Sora, you're going to get hit!" exclaimed Erza.

"Don't worry, it's under control," he said and when the dragon was close to the Keybearer, he slid underneath of it to dodge the attack and then he struck the Storm Rider with his Keyblade to toss it high into the sky. Sora told Wendy and Natsu to attack the Heartless so it won't crash into the train and they obeyed.

"_Tenryū no Hōkō!_" the girl said and the tornado that came out of her mouth sent the Heartless away from the train and then Natsu attacked, he ignited both of his hands and combined the flame, creating a large fireball.

"_Karyū no Kōen!_" he exclaimed and threw the fireball at the Storm Rider, that blow it away and a heart could be seen flying into the air. Both Dragon Slayers landed near Sora, the two cats looked really tired after been carrying their two partners during the fight.

"Nice job, Wendy," said Sora and she gave him a smile as they slapped their hands in a high five. When the Keybearer looked at Natsu, he saw the Fire Dragon Slayer lying on the floor and with a sick expression on his face.

"Motion sickness strikes again…" said Sora as carried Natsu and Happy inside the carriages where they sat before the Heartless attacked. The boy could tell that they were arriving at their destiny since the train started stopping.

"Nice job, everyone," Erza said. "The train and the passengers are safe and sound."

"They looked really organized," Lucy said. "Do you think that someone expected us to catch this train?"

"We'll know it soon," said the redhead and the train stopped. When they got off the train, the people in the train thanked the team for protecting them from the Heartless. According to the note the thief gave Sora, the person controlling the Heartless was going to prepare them in an old mansion on the outskirts of the town they were at the moment. The group followed a path that, according to the people of the town, led to the place they wanted to go and after a few minutes, they arrived at the old mansion.

"There it is," said Erza. "It looks really old."

"We have to go in there?" asked Lucy who didn't like the idea.

"Maybe it's haunted," Happy said making a sinister face.

"How scary…" Wendy whimpered while Lucy and she hugged each other.

"Come on you two, don't act like scaredy-cats," Gray said and then something moved inside a bush which scared the two girls more and alerted the others.

The redhead Mage aimed her sword at the bush. "Come out and don't try anything funny," she said and someone jumped off the bush to reveal himself and now it was Erza the one who was scared.

"I'm glad to see you again, my honey!"

* * *

**I guess everyone know who is the one that appeared at the end of this chapter. Anyway I hope you liked the chapter and review if you please.**


	10. An Unwanted Acquaintance

_**An Unwanted Acquaintance**_

Sora looked puzzled at the person who just appeared in front of Erza, a short man with orange hair and wearing a white suit, but what surprised him the most was that the redhead mage started to shiver when she saw that man since he has never seen her like that.

"I'm glad to see you again, my honey!"

"I-Ichiya…" Erza stuttered.

"My honey?" repeated Sora and then he looked at Erza while trying to hide his smile. "Don't tell me he is…"

"No! I vigorously deny it!" she exclaimed.

"Wait," Happy began, "if Ichiya is here, then…"

Suddenly three more people jumped off the bushes that were around and landed behind Ichiya. They were three men wearing a black suit and you could tell that they belonged to a same team.

"Greetings…" said the young man with brownish blond hair.

"People…" continued the boy with blond hair and that was the same age as Sora.

"Of Fairy Tail," the man with dark spiky hair finished and then the three men, along with the man called Ichiya, did a pose that Sora found funny, although the rest of his team looked more disturbed than amused.

"The Trimens…" Lucy muttered.

"Who?" asked Sora.

"A team from the Blue Pegasus guild," answered Happy and he started to point at the members of the team. "They are Ichiya, Hibiki, Eve and Ren."

"They are just a group of womanizing men," Carla whispered to Sora.

"We're really happy to see you again, Erza-san, Lucy-san, Wendy-san…and the others," said Ichiya which annoyed Gray. Natsu was still a bit dizzy to care about what the man said and Sora didn't know how to react, but his first impression was that they were a bit weird.

"Wendy, how have you been? Did the mages of Fairy Tail treat you well?" asked Eve.

"Uh, yes…thanks for asking," Wendy replied nervously.

"You are looking gorgeous," Ren said to Lucy, "but it's not like I care or something."

"Tsundere…" Lucy said as she tried to move away from Ren.

"Like always, you have a wonderful _parfum_, Erza-san," Ichiya said as he sniffed the redhead mage which made her body stiffen, however this didn't last much.

"Don't get close to me!" Erza exclaimed as she punched Ichiya in the face and he landed near the Keyblade wielder. Hibiki, who watched how his leader tried to get up after Erza's punch, noticed the new member in the Fairy Tail group.

"Oh, a newcomer?" he said not very interested since he would have preferred another girl in the group. Then Ichiya got up and looked at Sora with curiosity, the boy was starting to get nervous too, he didn't like how the short man was staring at him.

"I detect an incredibly strong _parfum,_" he said. "Who might you be, young boy?"

"Uh…my name is Sora," said the Keybearer which surprised the four members of the Trimens.

"Could it be…" said Eve.

"It's him, there's no doubt," Hibiki affirmed.

"Our rival!" exclaimed the mages of Blue Pegasus, except Ichiya who was studying Sora.

"…" Sora was dumbfounded since he didn't know what he did to them in order to become their rival. "Hey, what are you talking about?"

"These days, the young ladies of our guild only talk about the new member of Fairy Tail," explained Ren.

"They are always saying that you're really cute and strong," Eve continued. "I'm so jealous!"

"I would have never thought that a man of Fairy Tail could steal our spotlight like this," Hibiki said.

"Hey, repeat that if you dare!" Gray exclaimed.

"Okay, those three are crazy," Sora said with an emotionless face.

Lucy laughed slightly. "You are such a ladies' man," she said while nudging the boy with her elbow playfully.

"I don't know what you are talking about," the Keybearer said with a tired smile. "_I'm sure that reporter has something to do with all this._"

"Why don't you, dainty mages of Blue Pegasus, leave?" said an annoyed Gray. "You're getting on our way."

"Sorry, but we are in the middle of a mission," Hibiki replied. "If you want us to leave, you'll have to make us."

"Hey, if you are going to fight count me in!" Natsu said suddenly who recovered from his sickness immediately.

"Natsu, don't encourage them…" Lucy said.

"All right, we challenge the three men of Fairy Tail," said Eve. "But don't think that we're going to-"

"Oh, so you want to fight, uh?" interrupted Sora. He looked at the Blue Pegasus mages with a deadly glare that was similar to Erza's and you could see a powerful magic aura around him that daunted the Trimens. It was out of his character, but he wanted them to stop with that nonsense since the man they are looking for could escape if they keep wasting time.

"Sora-san can be scary too…" said Wendy a bit scared.

"That's what they get for provoking him," Gray said smirking.

"Everyone, remember why we are here," Carla said.

"Of course!" exclaimed Ichiya while doing poses. "Young men, I remind you that Sora-kun is in charge of protecting Fiore, so we should be more respectful towards him."

"He is not listening…" Carla muttered.

"Ichiya-sama is right," said Hibiki. "We mustn't get carried away by our jealousy."

"Please, accept our apology," the Trimens said to the Keyblade wielder while bowing.

"Don't worry about it," Sora said. "_They're a bit nice after all._"

"Now that I remember," Erza began, "Blue Pegasus is nearby, why are you here?"

"You're correct, my honey," Ichiya answered as he jumped around her. "We're here because I smelt a horrible and evil _parfum_ over here."

"Keep the distance or I'll slice you," Erza warned.

"Then, we're following the same person," Lucy said.

"Does anyone live there?" Happy asked looking at the old mansion.

"It's the old residence of Master Bob," Hibiki replied, "but he couldn't find anyone who wanted it so it has been abandoned since he moved."

"The guy controlling the Heartless could be in there," Gray said.

"Come on, what are we waiting for?" Natsu said and he started to run to the entrance of the house.

"You heard him, young men," Ichiya said to the members of his team. "The Trimens will lend a hand to the mages of Fairy Tail."

"Yes, Ichiya-sama!" they said while following the Perfume Mage and then the four entered the mansion after Natsu. The others just stood outside with defeated expressions on their faces, the Blue Pegasus team joined so fast that they couldn't even react.

Sora sighed while rubbing his forehead. "I am already exhausted," he said.

"It's normal," Gray said, "but don't worry, you'll get used to them…eventually."

"If you say so," Sora said.

Both teams got in the old mansion and when they crossed the door, everything was very quiet inside and there wasn't any Heartless in sight which Sora found strange since he expected an ambush. He looked at his surroundings and saw that the mansion was indeed old and it was obvious that nobody lived there.

"It's quiet…too quiet," Lucy said. "I don't like this place."

"Look Lucy," Happy said as he pointed to a window. "It's getting dark."

"You're not helping at all!" she shouted and Erza put her hand on the blonde's mouth which surprised her.

"Don't raise your voice," said the redhead. "Gray, freeze the door."

"Right," Gray responded and he used his magic to freeze the entrance so nobody could escape easily from the house.

"Let's look around the mansion," Erza said. "It's not very big so we shouldn't have any troubles finding him."

"You heard the lady, if you see someone suspicious, catch him," Ichiya said and the three men of his team saluted to the Perfume Mage. Everyone started to look for the person who was inside the mansion; the Keyblade wielder saw that the Trimens were following Erza and Lucy, much to their annoyance, so he took another way. Sora walked carefully and he stopped in front of a door which caused someone to bump into him from behind.

"Oh, sorry Sora," said the person who turned out to be Lucy.

"I thought you were with Erza and the Trimens, Lucy," Sora said.

"Yeah, but I managed to escape," replied the girl, "besides, it's safer to be by your side when the Heartless appear."

"Do you think so?" asked Sora raising an eyebrow and then Natsu appeared behind the Celestial Mage and put one of his arms around her which startled her.

"Hey, did you find anyone?" he said.

"Not yet and please, don't do that again," said Lucy which confused the Dragon Slayer. "This place gives me the creeps and you're not helping."

"Hey, lovebirds," said Sora with a playful expression on his face. "We should continue, if that's okay with you."

"We're not lovebirds!" said the two mages at the same time and Sora let out a small chuckle. Then he heard something on the other side of the door, it could be one of their allies, but it could be the person they want to capture too, so the Keyblade wielder looked at the mages and they nodded, telling him that they were prepared. Sora slowly opened the door and when Natsu, Lucy and he went into the room, someone threw a smoke bomb and took the opportunity to scape.

"Damn it!" Sora exclaimed who couldn't see anything.

"Guys, he's trying to escape!" Lucy shouted to alert the other mages. The rest of the group heard Lucy and saw someone running to the entrance of the mansion so they tried to stop him. Ichiya jumped to catch him, but then the person throw him a small bomb that sent the mage away.

"Meeeeen," he said while flying.

The running figure saw that the door was completely frozen, so he started to throw more bombs, trying to break the ice. Gray saw what he was trying to do so he came up with an idea.

"_Ice-Make: Floor!_" The floor of the corridor turned into ice which made the person trip and fall. Meanwhile, Sora, Natsu and Lucy managed to get out of the room where the smoke bomb exploded and they saw the other mages surrounding someone in the next room, it looks like the hit made the person lose his consciousness. When Sora and the others went into the room, the others moved so they could see the face of the mysterious figure and the Keybearer recognize it immediately.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me…" he said with annoyance.

* * *

**Mysterious Tower**

While Fairy Tail and Blue Pegasus were in the old mansion, capturing the person who could control the Heartless, in another world two people trained.

"Okay, could we take a break?" said a redhead girl who was panting because she was really tired after training all day.

"Good idea," said the silver-haired boy who was helping the girl to become stronger. "Let me say that you have improved greatly, I'm really impressed, Kairi."

"Thanks, Riku," said the girl with a smile on her face.

"You shouldn't have problems with any Heartless," Riku said, "but if you want to put up a good fight against a member of the New Organization, you'll have to continue training like this."

"My priority is to catch up with Sora and you," Kairi said and Riku smiled.

"You haven't stopped training since you arrived here," the boy said. "I'd say that you're almost as skilled as Sora when he started his second journey."

"Hey…do you think he's okay?" asked the girl with a concerned voice.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" replied Riku a bit confused.

"Well, after Yen Sid told us what happened during his mission at Death City, I started to get worried about Sora," said the Princess of Heart. "I wonder why he didn't tell you anything."

"You know how Sora is, he doesn't want us to worry about him," Riku said with his arms crossed. "Besides, according to Master Yen Sid, he is completely fine now."

Riku could tell that his friend was still concerned about Sora's safety so he thought of something that could help.

"Hey, since you really want to see him, why don't we go to the world he is right now?" said the Keyblade Master.

Kairi's cheeks turned a bit red when Riku said that and she tried to hide it, but it was no use since he already noticed her blush.

"That would be great," the girl said, "but do you think Yen Sid…"

"We won't know if we don't try," Riku stated and then Kairi and he went to the wizard's study. The former Keyblade Master was looking at the sky through one of the windows of the room when he heard someone opening a door.

"Ah, Riku and Kairi," he said. "Do you need something?"

"Master, I was thinking that Kairi needs to practice against real enemies, so I thought that maybe we could go to the world Sora's protecting at the moment," Riku told his master. "Besides, we'd really like to see how Sora is doing."

Yen Sid stroked his beard as a thinking gesture; Riku was glad that he was considering the idea since he also wanted to see his friend and Kairi was crossing his fingers mentally, she really wanted that the old wizard gave them the green light to leave the tower.

"That would be a good idea," Yen Sid said and both teens sighed in relief. "But I ask you to be really careful and don't do anything reckless."

"Right!" said both Keyblade wielders.

"You can take the King's ship," the wizard said. "Riku, do you know how to pilot a Gummi Ship."

"Sora taught me, you don't have to worry about it, Master," Riku answered and Yen Sid nodded. Both teens left the tower and got into the Gummi Ship after saying goodbye to the wizard.

"So, what's the world's name?" asked Kairi with curiosity.

"Earth Land," Riku replied and the girl raised an eyebrow. "It's going to take at least a day to arrive there since it's a bit far from here."

"That sounds almost like our world," Kairi commented. "But I guess is going to be really different."

"I heard that magic is something really important in that world," Riku mentioned. "Anyway, I don't know where Sora landed so surely we will have to find him when we arrive."

"That won't be a problem," Kairi affirmed. "I'm sure that if we ask someone, they will know where he is. I wonder what he is doing right now."

"Surely he's having a good time," Riku said smirking.

* * *

**Master Bob's Old Residence**

The mages looked at the person they captured with speechless expressions while Sora looked more depressed than surprised since he wasn't very happy to see Pete in this world. The others thought that it was obvious that the captured person wasn't human; in fact it looked like an oversized cat, at least his face was similar to a cat's face.

"Are you an Exceed?" asked Carla.

"It's like Lily's Battle Mode, but you're fat instead," Happy said while flying around the Pete's head

"What are you talking about, stupid blue cat? Go away!" Pete said.

"What were you doing here, you horrible creature?" Ichiya asked but Pete didn't say anything.

When Sora saw the sparkling man and Pete at the same time he went to one of the room's corners with his hands on his pockets and you could see a gloomy aura around him, it was too much for him to see Pete again since he was a real nuisance.

"Why it has to be Pete…? Why…" Sora lamented and his guild mates noticed.

"He broke down…" said a surprised Lucy.

"It seems that he knows him," said Gray, who noticed Sora's change of attitude when he saw Pete.

"Sora-san, cheer up!" Wendy said, trying to make the boy return to his usual lively self.

"I thought that you were dead, kid," Pete spoke and the others looked at him with expressions of disbelief and wide eyes. "Maybe Xeha-"

Before Pete could finish his sentence, Sora used a Blizzard spell to cover his mouth so the others couldn't hear what he was going to say. He knew that Pete was going to talk about Xehanort and what happened at Death City and he didn't want the others to know; besides Master Makarov told him to not tell the others about him and the boy always fulfills his promises.

"Hey, Sora…did something bad happen to you?" Lucy said, a bit doubtful since she wasn't sure if she should ask Sora about it.

"Don't worry, I'm completely fine," Sora assured, although the other mages knew that there was something that he wasn't telling, but they didn't want to pressure him so they brushed that aside for the moment.

"Do you know him?" Hibiki asked the Keybearer.

"Yeah, his name is Pete and he has been causing troubles around the worlds lately," Sora answered. "Doubtlessly, he is the one who is controlling the Heartless here and I'm guessing that he was planning to turn the people of Earth Land into Heartless to create an army or something like that. Probably he was going to use the Heartless to attack your guild."

Pete didn't say anything since he had ice covering his mouth, but you could tell, by the expression on his face, that Sora nailed it. The Mages looked at the big cat with angry looks and Natsu was going to burn him with his flames, but Gray stopped him.

"What shall we do with him?" asked Lucy.

"I say we beat him up," Natsu said.

"That's your answer for everything," said the Ice Mage.

A Corridor of Darkness appeared behind the Mages while they argued and Pete noticed it, he had an opportunity to escape from his enemies and he was going to take it. He managed to drop some kind of bomb that rolled to where the Keyblade wielder was.

"Hey, what's that!?" asked Eve, who noticed the dark portal behind them. Sora saw the corridor and then turned his head to look at Pete, who was standing up. Then the bomb exploded, producing a blinding light which affected everyone. Pete could cross the Corridor of Darkness and escape from the mansion and Natsu was going to follow him, but Sora grabbed his arm before the Dragon Slayer started to run and Natsu didn't understand why the boy was stopping him.

"Don't cross that, something could happen to you," said Sora and Natsu nodded since he could tell that Sora knew about those portals.

Sora sighed with frustration. "I should have paid more attention to him," he said.

"Don't take all the blame, we should have done it too," Erza said.

"I don't think that he returns to this world immediately, so the attacks will decrease significantly," Sora said.

"Finally more good news," Gray said.

"But even so, we shouldn't let our guards down," the redhead Mage told everyone. "Anyway, I'm glad that this trip wasn't in vain."

"Could we return to Magnolia," Lucy said. "I don't want to be in this place anymore."

"But it's too late," Happy said. "We won't find any transport."

"Then come to our guild," Ichiya said while making a pose. "We will provide you with a private transport that will take you to your home."

"I'm not sure if I want to go there," muttered Gray, he remembered the master of Blue Pegasus and I didn't like the idea of seeing him again, however it was the only way to return to Magnolia so he had to put up with it.

The group arrived at the guild after a few minutes and they could see someone in front of the building, it was an elderly, bald, and cross-dressing man, although Sora wasn't sure if he was a man until Ichiya called him Master Bob. The Guild Master of Blue Pegasus was happy to see the Fairy Tail group and Gray and Natsu were acting weird when they saw him and Sora could understand why, he wondered if everyone in Blue Pegasus were that peculiar.

"Boys, you had me worried," said Bob. "Five more minutes and I would have started looking for you. How did it go? Did you find the person you were looking for?"

"Yes, Master, however he managed to escape," Ren said.

"Oh, it's a pity, but don't worry about it," Bob told them. "The most important thing is that you're all okay."

"Master Bob," Ichiya began, "our friends from Fairy Tail need a transport to return to their home and I told them that we could let them use one of ours."

"Of course they can!" said Bob and then he looked at the boys of the team. "I'd do anything for those cute boys."

"He's even creepier than some Heartless," Gray muttered and Natsu nodded.

"By the way, who is the new member of the team? He's adorable," Bob asked and then Sora felt chills down his spine, then Ichiya told his master who Sora was and he hugged the Keyblade wielder tightly which caused Sora to be more freaked out.

"_Now I want to return to the girls' dormitory,_" thought a desperate Sora.

* * *

**That's all for chapter ten, I hope you enjoyed reading it and write a review if you please.**


	11. The Destiny Trio

_**The Destiny Trio**_

Thanks to Blue Pegasus, the Fairy Tail team was able to return to Magnolia instead of spending the night in the open air, although they could have used the rooms in Master Bob's guild, however Natsu, Gray and Sora didn't like the idea very much. The day after the encounter with Pete, since the Heartless attacks decreased, Sora and the others decided to take a break, although Natsu and Gray trained with Sora instead of resting. The Keyblade wielder could improve his Fire and Blizzard Magic thanks to them and the other two improved their resistance to other types of Magic like Thunder and Aero.

On the other hand, the girls were thinking about what Pete said at the old mansion. He mentioned that he thought Sora was dead and he was going to say someone's name too, but Sora froze his mouth and no one could hear the complete name and most of them didn't give it importance since they knew that Sora, being who he is, usually put his life in danger, however the girls were curious about the person Sora didn't want them to know about.

"Sorry, but the book doesn't mention any names," Levy said, who was reading the book about Keyblades since Lucy asked her if there was someone with a name that starts with "Xeha", but it seems that the book wasn't going to be helpful.

"Erza couldn't get any information from Master either," said a disappointed Lucy. "Although she told me that he was dodgy so maybe he knows something."

Levy closed the book and let out a sigh. "Don't you think we're meddling too much?"

"What do you mean?" asked Lucy while tilting her head.

"Don't get me wrong, if Sora had a problem, I'd love to help him," Levy answered, "but I had the feeling that we shouldn't pry into Sora's affairs, we could end up finding out something that we wouldn't have liked to know."

"I know but…" Lucy said, remembering what happened yesterday, "he has been acting a bit different since we returned."

"Well, everyone has their own secrets, right?" Levy said but the Celestial Mage was still concerned. "Although, to be honest, I also would like to know if something is bothering him."

"Then why don't you ask him?" Mirajane said to the two girls, it looks like she heard a bit of their conversation so the S-Class Mage decided to give them an advice.

"Mira, do you think that's a good idea?" asked the blonde Mage.

"Of course," she answered. "It's better if you ask him directly, I'm sure he won't mind and will appreciate your concern."

Lucy thought that it was a good idea and then she started to look at Levy, which confused the bluenette at first, but then she understood why Lucy was looking at her.

"Oh no, forget it," Levy said crossing her arms.

"Aw, come on, Levy-chan," Lucy pleaded. "Sora and you get along pretty well, it should be easy."

"What do you mean by that?" Levy said, blushing slightly. "Anyway, I've already asked him a lot of things, he'll think I am a busybody. Besides, aren't you the one who met him first?"

"I know, but I wanted to have someone by my side when I talk to him," Lucy explained.

"What about someone from your team?" Levy suggested.

Lucy thought about Erza, but then she realized that the redhead could make things more difficult, maybe Gray and Wendy were good options, but what she had to do first is to find Sora. The blonde was walking near a water canal with Plue by her side, she got warnings from the men in the boats and, when the girl was near her house, she saw the Keyblade wielder and waved to him and he did the same.

"Hi Lucy," Sora greeted, then he noticed the white creature next to the blonde and he crouched to look at it. "Hey, what kind of bug is this?"

"It's a dog, not a bug," Lucy corrected. "His name is Plue and is one of my Spirits."

"_This is a dog?"_ thought Sora perplexed, looking at the shivering creature who greeted him, although Plue only said "puu-puun". Plue jumped onto Sora's head and the boy raised his hand to pat the dog's head.

Lucy smiled at them and then she noticed that Sora looked tired and she asked the Keybearer what he has been doing.

"Sparring with Natsu and Gray," Sora answered, "although we ended up fighting seriously after a while."

Lucy laughed nervously. "I guess that was expected to happen," she said and then the girl had an idea. "Hey, would you like to take a drink at my house? Maybe you could rest a little after fighting against those two."

"Sounds good," said Sora after thinking about it a few seconds. The two, or three if you include Plue, went inside the building and reached the door that led to Lucy's apartment. When the blonde opened the door, she saw the other members of Team Natsu, who invaded her house like always.

"Welcome home!" everyone said.

"Sorry, we entered without asking," mentioned Wendy.

"My room!" exclaimed Lucy. "What are you doing here!?"

"We came to play," Natsu said.

"Aye!" Happy added.

Lucy looked at them with a plain face, she wondered why everyone was in her apartment, but what worried her was that now it was going to be more difficult for Sora to open up, since they were many people around. Erza walked to Lucy and started to whisper something in the blonde's ear.

"Mira told us what you were going to do, so we came here to help," Erza whispered.

"Don't you think that it's will be more complicated if we're all here?" asked Lucy, without raising her voice.

"Sorry, everyone was curious about that guy called Pete and I couldn't convince them to go to the guild," said the redhead.

Lucy was still doubtful, she didn't know how they were going to do it, but maybe they could come up with something. Now she was going to offer the boy a drink, then she would try to bring up the subject.

"I suppose you're all here because you want to know about what happened yesterday, right?" Sora said and the others looked at him slack-jawed.

"We got busted," Gray said.

"He's really perceptive," Happy mentioned.

"What do you expect?" Carla asked. "It was obvious that he was going to realize that we were going to ask him about it after seeing that we're all here."

"You don't mind?" Erza asked.

"Nah, I knew that you were going to ask me about Pete sooner or later," Sora replied, "so I talked with Master about it."

"Great, we're all ears!" Natsu said, the others sat down and looked attentively at the Keyblade wielder.

"All right, I'll try to be brief," Sora said as he sat down too and put Plue on the floor. "I've already told you about Pete, he's just someone who causes troubles to other worlds. The name he was going to say before I shut him up was Xehanort."

"Who is he exactly?" asked Lucy.

"As you know, there are other worlds that have problems with the Heartless," Sora said and they nodded. "Basically, he is responsible for putting at risk the worlds' safety and my biggest enemy."

The Mages didn't look very surprised since they expected that answer; however they wanted to know more about Xehanort.

"I take that he's really strong," Erza said. "What kind of warrior is he?"

"Xehanort is a Keyblade Master," answered the spiky boy and his friends looked dumbfounded at him. That was something that they didn't expect and took them by surprise, someone like Sora was the one causing troubles to innocent people and that was hard to assimilate, although the only thing that Xehanort and Sora had in common is that they can use a Keyblade, nothing more.

"Wait, did you say "Master"?" Lucy asked and Sora nodded. "What's the difference between a normal wielder and a master?

"The same difference between a Mage and an S-Class one, I guess," Sora said and the Mages started to get nervous.

"Sora-san, you are a Keyblade Master too, right?" Wendy asked nervously.

"Nope, I took the exam to become one, but I failed," Sora said nonchalantly which worried the others. "But, hey, it's just a title so don't worry. There will be a battle against Xehanort soon and I'll make sure to make him pay for what he has been doing."

Sora's confidence reassured the Mages, you could tell that he was more than determined to defeat Xehanort, but, as expected, they wanted to help him.

"Hey, how about we lend you a hand?" Natsu asked but Sora crossed his arms, forming an "x".

"Sorry, but none of you can intervene in this," said the Keybearer which surprised them. "I can't take you out of your world, besides you have to stay here to protect Earth Land in case something happens."

"Not even one of us?" Gray asked and Sora shook his head.

"You better win, then," Natsu said. "Not just as a Keyblade wielder, but as a Fairy Tail Mage too."

"Losing is not part of my plan," Sora said while smiling

"There's one more thing, but I'm not sure if I want to know," Lucy commented. Sora immediately understood that the Celestial Mage wanted to know why Pete said that he thought Sora was dead.

"Oh, about that…" Sora said. "Before coming here, I was in another world helping to defeat the Heartless and Xehanort decided to pay me a visit. I had some problems there and he beat me up really hard, however thanks to the friends I made there I could solve it and return him the beating, but he escaped and I couldn't go after him."

"So you won against him once, huh?" Gray said. "That's great, you just have to do it again and everything will be fine."

"We'll see," Sora said with a nervous smile. "_It was his younger self, but I guess that counts._"

"Thanks for trusting us, Sora-san," said a happy Wendy.

"Yeah, this has been easier than I thought," Erza said. "I was thinking of ways to make you talk."

"That sounded scary, you know?" Lucy said with a scared expression.

"I wonder if some day we could go to other worlds," Happy mentioned.

"We've been in Edolas, remember?" Carla said.

"Oh, it's true," Sora said, "Master told me that you've been in a world that is a parallel version of yours."

"That's right," said the blue cat. "I wonder if there's an Edo-Sora in the other Fairy Tail."

"He's not from Earth Land so I don't think so," Erza said.

"How do you think Edo-Sora would be?" Natsu asked Lucy and she started to imagine it.

"Well, he would have the same face, maybe a different hair color and probably he would be evil with a dark personality," Lucy said.

"Now you're the one saying scary thing, Lucy," Happy said and Sora laughed, although, for some reason, Lucy's description reminded him of someone, but he didn't know who.

"All right, now that all is clear, we should get a good sleep," the redhead Mage said. "Some towns could need our help tomorrow."

* * *

The next day, Natsu and Happy ran to the guild to see if there were more requests for Sora, they were eager to go on another mission. They went to Lucy's house before going to Fairy Tail of course, thing that she didn't like but couldn't do anything about it and she ended up going with them. When they arrived the Dragon Slayer went directly to the board and saw that there were some requests for the Keyblade wielder. Gray was also there, looking at the board and next to him there was Lucy who was talking with Levy about what happened in her house yesterday.

"So, he ended up telling you everything and you didn't even need to ask," Levy said surprised and her friend nodded. "I don't know about Xehanort but surely Sora will be able to achieve what he has set his mind to."

"I agree," Lucy said as she looked at the Request Board. "Today I wanted to keep writing my novel, but it looks like Sora has some requests now."

"I was hoping that the Heartless didn't attack today either," said Gray, who listened the blonde Mage. "I wanted to fight against Sora again, I have the feeling that he wasn't going all out yesterday."

"At least you guys work with him a lot, I only worked with him once," Levy said.

"Ah, you have grown fond of Sora, huh?" Lucy said teasingly.

"Cut that out, you are starting to act like Mirajane," said a flustered Levy. "Besides, I-"

"What is it?" asked Lucy.

"Nothing, forget it," said the bluenette.

While the Mages talked, a man with a bag entered the guild. He was the courier who people used to send the request to different guilds and take the ones who are already fulfilled. He approached Mirajane and gave her some requests and told her that the ones who were for Sora were already done which surprised the people who heard him.

"Someone already protected those towns?" Lucy asked in disbelief.

"Did Sora travel alone again?" Gray asked Wendy since the last time she was the one who knew that Sora left, but the girl shook his head.

"I don't think so," Erza said. "I saw him talking with Juvia in Fairy Hills before I came to the guild."

"_That makes me nervous for some reason,_" thought the Ice Mage. "Then who could have done it?"

"Oh, you don't know?" asked the courier. "Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus have Keyblade wielders in their ranks now. I heard that they're looking for your Keyblade wielder so you will see them soon."

"WHAT!?" everyone in the guild exclaimed and Master Makarov spat out his drink.

"That's right," said someone and everyone looked at the entrance of the building to see that the one who spoke was Lyon Vastia from Lamia Scale. He was with his team and the Trimens were also there.

"Lyon," Gray said surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Ichiya…" Erza added.

"As you know," Lyon began as he walked to his rival, "Lamia Scale has a Keyblade wielder too and he was looking for Sora, so we escorted him up here and. We encountered with the Mages of Blue Pegasus when we arrived here."

"Now three guilds of Fiore have Keyblade wielders," Ichiya said. "However, I have to say that ours has the best _parfum_."

"Sooo, where are they?" Lucy asked.

"It looks like our Keyblade wielder knows the one of Blue Pegasus," Sherry said. "They've been arguing about some kind of accident."

"Look, there they are," Hibiki said, looking at the entrance.

The people of Fairy Tail looked at the entrance of their guild and they saw two teens, a boy with short silver hair and a redhead girl.

"I'm just saying that it wasn't my fault," said the boy.

"Anyway, you're not driving anymore," the girl retorted.

"They look about the same age as Sora," Lucy said.

"So, who of the two is yours?" Gray asked Lyon.

"The boy, his name is Riku and let me say that he could be stronger than Sora," Lyon said proudly.

"How can they be so strong!?" shouted Toby and Yuka told him to calm down.

"Riku…" Happy mused.

"You heard about him before?" asked Carla.

"I think Sora mentioned that name when he slept in our house," the cat answered.

"Then the girl is in Blue Pegasus," Lucy said looking at the redhead. "What's her name?"

"She's Kairi, an amazing fighter and a real beauty," Ichiya said which left Mages of Fairy Tail astonished.

"So she's Kairi," Lucy said. "Sora's going to be very happy to see her."

"She's really pretty," Mirajane commented.

"Sora wasn't joking when he said that she looked a bit like Erza," said Levy.

"I hope you three haven't been trying anything with her," said Erza, looking at the Trimens with a deadly glare.

"We didn't, don't worry," Eve said, trying to calm Erza.

Riku and Kairi finished their arguing and went to where their teams were. The two were looking around but couldn't spot their spiky friend.

"Hey, Lyon," Riku spoke, "I don't see Sora around here."

"Oh, right, do you know where he is?" the Ice Mage asked the Fairy Tail team.

"He should be here soon," Levy said and then she saw the brown-haired Keybearer crossing the guild's front door. "Speaking of the devil, there he is."

When Sora entered the guild, he couldn't believe what he saw, his two best friends were right there, looking at him and smiling. He walked towards them, still looking at them in disbelief and when he was near the group, Kairi spoke.

"Sora, I'm-" she stopped talking because the spiky boy started to pull her cheeks. "What are you doing?"

"Checking that you're the real Kairi, because I still don't believe that you two are here," replied the boy and the people in the room sweat-dropped.

"I see that you haven't changed a bit," Riku said.

"Of course we're here, silly," Kairi said, then she hugged Sora and he returned it with one hand while he used the other to fist bump with Riku.

All the Mages couldn't help but smile at the happy reunion; it was obvious that those three were close to each other so they were glad for them. Makarov mentioned that it was incredible that three Keyblade wielders were in Fiore at the same time, but he knew that it was good for the kingdom. After introducing his friends to the Fairy Tail crew, Sora asked Riku and Kairi why they were in Fiore.

"Well, we wanted to get out of the tower a little," Riku replied, "and Kairi missed you."

"Why did you have to say that!?" asked a blushing Kairi. "I only wanted to know that he was all right after what happened."

"What do you mean?" Sora asked puzzled.

"Yen Sid told us about what happened in your last mission," Riku told him and Sora started to get really nervous.

"Oh, you…ah…" Sora didn't know what to say, but fortunately, Yen Sid didn't know exactly what happened in Death City or, at least, he didn't tell Riku and Kairi everything.

"He told us that you fought against young Xehanort and he beat you up," Riku said with a serious expression, but then it turned into one of satisfaction. "But, he also told us that you returned the beating and won against him."

"Right…" Sora said. "_It seems that they don't know about the other thing._"

"You're fine, right?" Kairi asked Sora, she was concerned about the boy and wanted to know if he was completely fine.

"Of course, I'm perfectly fine," he assured. "I see that you two joined a guild too."

"Oh, yeah," Riku began, "the man called Lyon told me that you joined a Mage Guild called Fairy Tail and I thought that it would be fun to do the same. Besides, it was easier to find you this way."

"I thought the same thing," Kairi said.

"_I'm not sure if I like that she's in Blue Pegasus, but I won't say anything_," Sora thought. "How is that you two ended up in different guilds?"

"You see…" Riku began but Kairi interrupted him, she told Sora that Riku didn't know how to pilot the King's Gummi Ship and they ended up in different places.

"I thought I taught you how to pilot a Gummi Ship," Sora said.

"Yes, but the King's was different from yours," Riku explained. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about it anymore. How is the situation around here?"

"Heartless pouring from everywhere, but I managed to keep the attacks under control with their help," Sora said, pointing at Team Natsu. "And we encountered with Pete."

"Then Maleficent is also behind this invasion," Riku deduced and Sora nodded in agreement.

"Well, with the three of us this should be a piece of cake," Kairi commented. "Now we can cover more ground and protect more towns at the same time."

"Sounds good to me," Riku said and then he looked at his new team. "We'll have to do the same thing we did before coming here, would you lend me a hand?"

"Of course, you don't even have to ask," Lyon said with a smile on his face.

"Kairi-san, we'll help you to defeat the Heartless too," Ichiya said and Kairi thanked him.

"It looks like we have competition," Gray said looking at the three Keybearers.

"This is amazing!" Wendy exclaimed. "With the help of Sora-san's friends, our world will be saved in no time!"

"It's a pity that they will have to work separated, now that they are reunited," Lucy said.

"It was their decision, we can't do anything about it," Erza said, smiling a bit.

"By the way, I'm surprised that you could defeat young Xehanort after taking a beating from him," Riku said with admiration. "You've become stronger."

"Well, what do you expect?" Sora said with a bit of cockiness.

"But you're still a sap," Riku added.

"Oh, yeah?" said Sora. "Well, this sap is the one who defeated you several times back in the island."

"Really?" said the Keyblade Master. "If I'm not mistaken, I defeated you more times."

A tense silence covered the room, Riku and Sora were staring to each other and then they started to stand up.

"Uh oh," Levy said.

"Don't tell me they're going to fight," Lucy said.

"Don't even think about it," Kairi said and the boys stopped.

"What? We haven't done anything," Sora said.

"I know that look on your faces, you two were going to fight right here," Kairi stated.

The people in the guild were impressed at the girl; she stopped the two boys from fighting just by saying a few words. Then Mirajane let out a small laugh caused by what just happened.

"It's like seeing a reflection of you three," she said, looking at Erza, Natsu and Gray.

"Do you think so?" Erza said.

"I can see it, too," Lucy said, laughing a little.

"Aww, I would have liked to see them fighting," Natsu said.

"I have to agree with you there," Gray said.

"If you want to fight, do it outside," Kairi told them.

"Wait, are you serious?" asked Sora and Riku in disbelief.

"Sure, I could learn a few tricks if I watch you," Kairi said with a smile on her face. "Besides, you will end up fighting sooner or later."

"What do you say?" Riku asked Sora.

"Let's do it," replied the spiky boy with decision.

"They're going to fight after all…" Levy said.

"Master, shouldn't we stop them?" asked a worried Wendy.

"I'd rather not interfere in a battle between Keyblade wielders," Makarov said. "Besides, I'm curious to see who will be the winner."

"I think it's a great idea," Lyon commented. "You'll see how strong Lamia Scale's Keyblade wielder is, Gray."

"You seem to be very confident," Gray said, crossing his arms. "I wouldn't look down on Sora, Lyon."

"Ah, now I remember," Happy said and everyone looked at him. "Sora said that Riku was his best friend and that he was a Keyblade Master."

"It's true, I remember that too," Natsu said and then he also remembered what Sora said about Keyblade Masters the last night. "Oh…"

"That fight is going to end sooner than expected…" Carla said.

"I don't know," Lucy said. "Sora looked really confident."

"Yeah, as confident as Natsu when he asks Gildarts or Erza for a fight," Happy said.

"Hey!" the Fire Dragon Slayer exclaimed.

"Anyway, I think Sora is going to win," Gray stated. "As he said, it's just a title and if he took that exam, it means that his level must be the same as Riku's."

"However, we haven't seen Riku in action," Erza told him. "But I'm with you; I think Sora will be victorious, he isn't someone who would give up easily and I'd really like to see him fighting seriously."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Lucy asked confused.

"Come on, do you really think that he was going all out against the Heartless?" Gray asked. "The only time we could have seen him using all his power was when he fought Gajeel, but Master stopped them before it happened."

"He could have protected all those towns on his own," said Erza, "but I guess he prefers to work in a team."

"I think you're right," Lucy said, looking at Sora and then he turned his gaze to the other members of Team Natsu. "We'll have to root for him, then."

"Let's hope they don't destroy the town," said the white cat.

* * *

**That's all for now, Riku and Kairi found Sora and joined a guild like him. The classic Sora vs. Riku will take part in the next chapter, although it's more like Fairy Tail vs. Lamia Scale, to see who has the strongest Keyblade wielder. I hope you liked the chapter, leave a review if you want and see you in the next one.**


	12. Celebrating a Duel

_**Celebrating a Duel**_

Sora reunited with Riku and Kairi, who joined Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus respectively, in Earth Land. The spiky Keyblade wielder was really happy to see their friends again and so were they. After talking about the latest events, Riku and Sora decided to have a duel, like the ones they had in Destiny Islands, although now that they have Keyblades, it was going to be different. To their surprise, Kairi also wanted them to have that duel since she wanted to learn a few things by watching them.

Sora and Riku wanted to fight because they wanted to know how much they've improved, or maybe just for old times' sake, however the Mages of Fairy Tail and Lamia Scale were more interested in knowing who was the strongest. A fight between two Keyblade wielders was a really rare event, so the people of Magnolia started to organize some kind of festival as soon as the Fairy Tail Mages spread the word.

"Boy, that was fast…" said Sora, looking at all the people who were at the festival that most of the residents of Magnolia prepared in just a few hours.

"Well, it's something that doesn't happen every day," Riku said. "However, I think they're exaggerating a little bit."

"Yeah, and the members of our guilds are also really excited about our duel too," Sora added. "I guess it's important for them too."

"I think it's just a rivalry that my guild has with yours," said Riku. "They're not very different from us if you ask me. Now I see why Lyon told me that the people of Fairy Tail were crazy, and I have to say that it suits you."

"…" Sora didn't say anything, he just looked at his friend with a glare which the silver-haired boy found funny and made him smile. "By the way, where is Kairi?"

"I saw her with some girls of your guild," Riku answered. "Hey, want to eat something before we start?"

"Sure, let's go!" Sora replied.

Meanwhile, the redhead Keyblade wielder was hanging out with Lucy, Erza, Levy and Wendy who had Carla in her arms. They became friends quickly and the Fairy Tail Mages were praising the girl for being the only girl who could wield the Keyblade, at least that's what Sora told them. The Princess of Heart was telling them about her life in Destiny Islands with Sora and Riku before their first adventure started.

"So, they've been always like this?" asked Lucy.

"Yes, always competing," Kairi affirmed. "They've always gotten along, but they also wanted to know who the best was and Riku was usually the winner."

"Really?" asked the Mages surprised and Kairi nodded. They knew that fighting with wooden swords wasn't the same as with Keyblades, but the image of Sora losing a fight was difficult to imagine.

"However," the female Keybearer began, "Sora never gave up and he won sometimes, especially the days before we separated."

"I guess that they stopped doing it after they got the Keyblade," Carla said.

"Mostly," Kairi replied. "But, as you can see, the two are still like they used to be."

"Do you think it's a good idea to let them fight?" Wendy asked, she didn't like the idea of Sora and Riku fighting very much, although she was also a bit curious to see what was going to happen.

"You know how stubborn boys can be," Kairi said and the girls nodded, they completely agreed with her. "But this has been a long time since they had a friendly duel so I didn't want to spoil their fun, but I didn't want them to fight inside your guild either."

"Yeah, the way you stopped them it was a bit like when Erza stops Gray and Natsu from fighting," Levy said.

"They also like to fight each other, huh?" Kairi said.

"Yes, maybe too much," Erza answered her, "and sometimes they don't get along like Sora and Riku do, although they're easy to tame."

"Well, Riku has always been difficult to "control", but I never had problems when it comes to Sora," Kairi said proudly and with a small smile on her face.

"Ah, mind to share with us?" asked the Celestial Mage, curious to know about it.

"He is a sucker for puppy dog eyes and pouting faces," Kairi affirmed. "He starts to get nervous and ends up giving in."

"Really?" said Erza. "I would have never guessed."

"Everyone has a weakness, right?" Lucy said although she also found funny that Sora was weak to that.

"You can say that," said Kairi after laughing slightly. "By the way, talking about Sora, I forgot to thank you for taking care of him."

"Oh, you don't have to," Levy said. "Actually, he is the one who has been taking care of all us and the rest of Fiore by defeating the Heartless."

"I guess he really has changed a little," Kairi muttered, but the others heard her.

"Changed?" asked Lucy.

"You see, he used to be really lazy back in the islands and he could get asleep everywhere," the girl explained and the Mages couldn't help but laugh.

"Hey, are you gossiping about me?" said someone suddenly and the girls turned to see that it was Sora, who was looking at them with his arms crossed and raising an eyebrow.

"What makes you think that?" Kairi said.

"Well, the only times you use the word "lazy" it's when you're talking about me," Sora answered.

"Wasn't Riku with you? Where is he?" asked Kairi, trying to avoid the subject.

"We went to eat something and then the master of my guild called him," Sora said. "It looks like he wanted to talk with him."

"I wonder what they're talking about," Erza commented. "Sora, when is your duel with Riku going to start?"

"Someone told me that Mirajane is going to sing something before, so we'll start when she finishes," Sora replied. "If you ask me, I think you're all taking this too seriously, it's just a duel."

"Yes, a duel between Keyblade wielders," Erza said, "something that hasn't happened ever in this world."

"You're really eager to see the fight, huh?" Lucy said.

"Of course," Erza answered. "Aren't you?"

"Maybe a little," replied the blonde. "_I could write something like this in my novel._"

"I also want to see your fight," Kairi told Sora. "I've only seen Riku using the Keyblade since he has helped me training, so I'm curious to see your style."

"Oh, that's true," Sora said. "Don't expect something out of this world."

The girls looked at him smiling or trying not to laugh which confused the boy until he realized what he said.

"Okay, I should have said something else…" Sora said, scratching the back of his head and then he saw some people walking towards a stage, he also saw the reporter who interviewed him days ago and he thought that he was going to announce Mirajane's performance so Sora, along with the girls, also approached the stage.

"Cool, cool, cooool!" Jason exclaimed through his microphone. "Everyone, Jason from Sorcerer is here, I'm glad to see that everyone is here to see the amazing and extremely awaited duel between Fairy Tail's Sora and Lamia Scale's Riku! I've been waiting for this really excited!"

"Wow, he's really energetic," Kairi said impressed.

"Yeah…" Sora muttered.

"You, shut up already!" Wakaba shouted to Jason.

"Just carry on with the show!" added Macao.

"Very well," Jason said. "Before the duel starts, our dear Mirajane will sing something to wish good luck to the fighters!"

The white-haired woman appeared on the stage; however she didn't have any instruments in her hands which confused the spectators.

"Hello everyone, I want to wish good luck to Sora and Riku, however someone is going to replace me so I hope you enjoy his performance!" she said and then the Iron Dragon Slayer appeared behind her, wearing a white suit and with and holding an electric guitar.

"Gajeel!?" said Sora astonished.

"Oh, god…" Levy said.

"Thank you everyone for coming today," Gajeel said. "Now, listen to my song called _Best Friend_."

"Again!?" most of the Fairy Tail Mages exclaimed.

"_Colorful, colorful, shooby doo bop! Tremble with love, steel grey metallic!_" sang Gajeel and the people started to throw him things.

"He is singing that crappy song again…" Natsu said while covering his ears and then Gajeel threw his guitar at him.

"Want to fight, Salamander!?" said the Iron Dragon Slayer.

"What do you think you're doing!?" Natsu asked.

"I'm shooby-doo-bopping, you idiot!" Gajeel answered.

"They're starting again…" Sora muttered and then he felt someone patting his shoulder, so he turned and saw that it was Riku.

"Hey, how about we fight now," said the silver-haired teen, looking at the two Dragon Slayers. "If we don't begin, they're going to do it for us."

"Yeah, you're right," said the spiky Keybearer. "Let's begin."

All the people formed a wide circle, which was going to be the battle area for the two Keyblade wielders. Sora and Riku looked at each other, smiling while the rest of the people were nervous and excited, most of them were rooting for Sora since he is the one who has been protecting Fiore, but Riku had also some fans, apart from Lyon's Team.

"Sora-san, do your best!" Wendy cheered.

"Take it easy, you two!" Kairi said.

"Hey, who do you think is going to win?" Lisanna asked her older brother.

"Sora, of course, he's a man!" Elfman answered.

"Isn't Riku a man too?" Warren said.

"Good luck, Riku!" Sherry exclaimed.

"Show them how strong you are," Lyon said.

"Not even think about losing!" Toby shouted.

"Talk about noise…" Riku said.

"Heh, you sounded just like Neku, you know?" Sora commented. "Anyway, not holding back, right?"

"If that's what you want, I won't hold back, but don't complain if I beat you up," Riku said, smirking at his friend and then he summoned the Way to the Dawn.

"Same to you, Riku," Sora said and he summoned his Keyblade, but he drew the Oblivion instead of the Kingdom Key which surprised his fellow guild mates, who only saw him using the original form of his sword.

The two Keyblade wielders looked at each other, grabbing their swords tightly while the people in the area looked at them carefully and quiet, not wanting to lose any detail of the fight. Then the two rivals rushed at each other really fast, they swords were going to collide, but before that could happen, Riku disappeared in front of Sora's eyes which surprised the spiky boy, but then he crouched since he felt that Riku was going to attack him from behind and he was right, he avoided being hit by the Riku's Keyblade and then Sora counterattacked, however the silver-haired teen jumped and dodged his friend's attack.

While Riku was in the air, he shot a Blizzard spell, but Sora ran forward to dodge it and attack Riku as soon as he landed. Both Keyblades clashed and their wielders struggled to break the other's guard. Normally Riku would have won the struggle, but it was obvious that Sora was stronger than before and he didn't want to lose the fight. Then, without moving his Keyblade, Sora cast Thundaga, trying to strike Riku, but he used his Dark Shield to protect himself and moved away from Sora, but the brown-haired boy followed him and the two fighters started to trade blows. Sparkles appeared whenever the Oblivion or the Way to the Dawn clashed while the wielders moved around the area really fast and you could see that, despite looking really serious, they were having fun.

While clashing each other's weapons, Sora could see an opening and took the opportunity to land a hit on Riku, however he reacted faster and blocked the blow and trapped Sora's Keyblade. Without wasting a second, Sora used his left hand to cast a Thunder spell which covered his hand and punch Riku, but the Keyblade Master used his right hand to grab Sora's fist to stop his attack, although he flinched when he felt Sora's spell. Now the Keybearer of Fairy Tail was trying to pull his Keyblade and free his hand but Riku wasn't letting him do it.

"Come on Sora, I thought you were stronger than this," Riku taunted.

"I'd pay more attention if I were you," Sora said and then he grabbed Riku's left wrist after dropping the Oblivion. The Keyblade vanished, which surprised Riku, who was looking at where Sora's sword was and then something hit him with hard enough to send him away from Sora. Riku recovered and touched the part of his torso where he got hit and then he looked up to see that his rival had his Keyblade in his mouth.

"You've got to be kidding me," Riku said while looking wide eyed at Sora who just shrugged and smiled after grabbing the Keyblade with his hand again. Then the spiky boy rushed at Riku before he could prepare an attack, he swung his Keyblade but Riku managed to parry the blow. This time it was Sora the one who disappeared from Riku's sight, and the Keyblade Master turned to his left since he sensed that Sora was going to attack from there and he blocked the boy's attack, however the Keybearer of Fairy Tail vanished again. Sora was attacking Riku from several directions really fast and Riku found difficult to block all the attacks, then Sora saw an opening and sent his opponent into the air with an upper slash.

Riku looked at the ground, but he couldn't spot Sora so he looked behind him and saw that the spiky Keyblade wielder was going to send him to the ground with a blow, but the Lamia Scale's Keyblade wielder could parry the attack and then he prepared a powerful Dark Fire spell and Sora did the same when he saw Riku's casting, but his spell was a Blizzard one. An explosion was created when the two spells collided which damaged the two fighters and made them land. The spectators were also affected by the explosion, but they were just pushed back a little by the small blast wave that the explosion created.

"Amazing!" said Natsu, covering his face with his arm so he the dust couldn't get in his eyes.

"Seriously?" said Gray while trying to see where Sora and Riku were.

"It's over?" Lucy asked as she grabbed Happy since the wave could send him away.

"I don't think so," Kairi said, looking how her two friends got up.

Sora and Riku looked at each other and quickly the two did the same movement, they grabbed their Keyblades and started to charge a special technique. It looked as if they were putting their swords in an imaginary sheath and their bodies started to glow with a bright light.

"_Zantetsuken!_" exclaimed the two Keybearers at the same time and then they attacked with an incredible speed and, since they attacked synchronized, their Keyblades hit each other, however, Riku's Zantetsuken was a more powerful than Sora's so the brown-haired boy's received part of Riku's attack and was knocked away. Sora stuck the Oblivion in the ground to stop himself and then he looked at Riku, who looked at tired as Sora.

Then Riku's body started to glow with a blue light and he started to ascend while grabbing the Way to the Dawn with both hands. Sora recognized the attack, so he grabbed his Keyblade tightly and prepared for what his opponent was going to do. The Keyblade Master rushed at Sora repeatedly from all directions, and the spiky boy rolled to avoid Riku's barrage of attacks, however he got hit by the last two thrusting attacks. To finish, Riku was going to plunge his weapon into the ground to release columns of energy, but Sora threw his Keyblade at the silver-haired teen before he could do it.

Sora retrieved the Oblivion and went to attack Riku when he touched the ground again, the two started to exchange blows again. The two wounds that Sora had in his body caused by Riku's Dark Aura technique started to sting since he was moving around and that distracted him momentarily and the Keyblade Master, taking advantage of that, hit Sora's Keyblade to make him hit himself and then he pulled the Oblivion and sent the weapon flying away. Now Sora was disarmed and had Riku's sword aiming at his throat.

"Do you give up?" asked Riku with a smirk on his face.

"It looks like it's over," Lyon said smiling with satisfaction.

"Sora-san lost…" Wendy said in disbelief.

"He was right when he said that Keyblade Masters were really strong," Lucy said.

"Come on Sora, keep going!" Natsu cheered, not wanting his friend to lose.

Sora heard the Dragon Slayer and then he looked at Riku who was still pointing his sword at him. Riku noticed that his friend was going to continue fighting so he raised his Keyblade and swung it at the spiky Keybearer, but then Sora grabbed the Keyblade Master's arm and kneed him in his side which made Riku lose the grip of his weapon. Sora jumped back while summoning the Oblivion back and now he had his Keyblade on his right hand and Riku's on the left hand.

"Just like that!" said Happy.

"Is that going to work?" asked Gray since he remembered that in their first mission with Sora, he told them that the Keyblades returns to their wielders if they lose it.

"If someone who is not a Keyblade wielder grabs one, the sword returns to its wielder after a few seconds," Kairi explained, "however, Keyblade wielders can use the Keyblade of another wielder, but the official owner can always summon his sword back."

"Then, the only thing Riku needs to do is to summon his Keyblade back, right?" Erza asked and Kairi nodded.

"You really want to win, huh?" Riku said to his best friend while panting.

"My guild mates expect me to win and you know that I'm not someone who disappoints people," Sora answered.

"That's true, but you'll have to try another thing," Riku said and he raised his hand to summon his Keyblade, however the Way to the Dawn stayed in Sora's hand which surprised Riku. Sora was running at Riku when he tried to summon back his Keyblade so he didn't notice what happened.

Riku cast his Dark Shield to protect himself, but Sora broke the shield using both Keyblades, then with the Way to the Dawn he sent Riku into the air and the brown-haired boy followed him to continue his attack. Sora started to attack Riku from all directions really fast, you only could see a blue flash striking the silver-haired teen which was using his arms to protect his body, but it was no use since Sora's blows were really powerful and Riku received a lot of damage.

Then Sora crossed the Keyblades, charged at Riku and made him hit the ground. The Keyblade Master tried to move, but now he was the one who had, not one, but two Keyblades near his neck. Riku knew that he was really injured and he couldn't retrieve his sword so he had to accept that Sora won this match.

"I can't go on," Riku said so everyone could hear it. "You win."

Sora was surprised at first but then he smiled widely and dropped the two Keyblades to help his Riku to stand up. The Fairy Tail Mages cheered for Sora's victory, while Lyon's team looked a bit down, although they weren't disappointed since the fight was fair and Riku tried his best, besides, they knew that Sora was really strong too so it was really difficult to win against him. On the other hand, Kairi was really surprised, he couldn't believe how strong Sora was and she looked amazed and with admiration at him.

Riku looked at his Keyblade which was on the ground and he summoned it back, he looked at hit a bit puzzled, he couldn't understand why the sword didn't come back to his hand but it looks like he was the only one who noticed it so he didn't say anything about it. Sora tossed a Hi-Potion to Riku as they walked to where the Mages were.

"All right!" exclaimed Natsu.

"Told you, he's the strongest one," Gray said to Lyon who had to accept that Riku lost. "But I have to admit that Riku is really skilled too."

"That's true," Erza said. "The two are really close to each other when it comes to fighting abilities; however it looks like Sora is a bit better than Riku."

"Lyon," Riku spoke when he and Sora got near them.

"You did it great, don't worry, I wasn't expecting an easy win," Lyon said and then he looked at Sora. "I noticed that you weren't fighting with all your power when we fought against the Heartless at Hargeon Town."

"Well, those Heartless weren't a big deal," Sora said while scratching the back of his head. "Besides, I really wanted to win this fight."

"Yeah, and this knuckle head is really stubborn when he gets something in his mind," Riku joked while pointing at Sora.

"Hey!" Sora said while the other laughed.

"You put up a good fight, Riku, nice job," Erza said to the Keyblade Master and he thanked her.

"Great job, Sora, like a true man," Elfman said and he patted Sora's back strongly and Sora winced in pain.

"Sora, you were amazing!" Kairi said.

"Do you think so?" Sora said a little embarrassed.

"Yeah, maybe you could win against Erza," Levy said, nudging Sora with her elbow.

"Mmmm, I wouldn't mind fighting with you," said the redhead Mage with a smile.

"Please, give me a break…" Sora pleaded.

* * *

**Chapter twelve finished, it looks like a lot of readers wanted me to update soon, sorry if it took too long, I hope you're all glad with the result. I would like to hear suggestions since I'm lack of ideas for the next chapters right now and I don't want to start to write the final part of this story until later chapters. Please review and leave a suggestion if you have any.**


	13. Preparing for a Vacation

_**Preparing for a Vacation**_

The festival continued after the duel between Sora and Riku finished, everyone was having fun, Natsu and Happy were stuffing Riku with a lot of food, which Sora found hilarious. Gray and Lyon were making a fuss since they were walking around scantily dressed, fortunately the other Mages of Lamia Scale told them about their lack of clothes before they could get into troubles. Kairi continued hanging out with Lucy and the others girls, as well as other members of Fairy Tail who wanted to know her. The Trimens were simply trying to flirt with every attractive girl they saw, although they weren't very successful with the female members of Sora's guild, but it looked like Ren and Sherry got along pretty well.

The trio of Destiny Islands was now in Fairy Tail, Sora wanted to talk before Riku and Kairi returned to their guilds, besides the girl wanted to mark on a map all the places Sora has protected already, this way Riku and she can check the towns who their friend hasn't visited yet.

"Can I ask you something?" Sora said to his two friends and they looked at him. "Why did you join a guild? Is there a special reason?"

"I guess I wanted to be like you," Riku admitted which left Sora surprised but confused. "I mean, you've made a lot of friends around the worlds and I wanted to do that too for a change, after all those things I did when I worked with that witch."

"Oh…" Sora remembered when Riku worked with Maleficent during his first journey, he already forgave his friend but it looks like the silver-haired teen wanted to clear his name.

"I can't make friends in an empty room like you, but I'm getting the hang of it," Riku bantered.

"Very funny…" Sora replied with a smug expression. "What about you, Kairi?"

"Well, it's my first mission as a Keyblade wielder so I thought that I'd needed some support and since Riku messed up with the Gummi Ship, I thought that joining a guild would be a good idea." Kairi explained and Riku groaned. "They treated me really well when they found me, especially Ichiya's team, although they became more distant when I told them that I was looking for you…I wonder why."

"How strange…" Sora said innocently and Kairi continued writing.

"And what about you?" asked Riku. "I thought you told Donald and Goofy that you wanted to work on your own for a while."

"I know, but I guess I can't help it," Sora admitted. "They were really happy when I told them that I was going to protect their world and I couldn't say no to the master of the guild. I know that we're not going to stay here forever, but knowing that we've a second home here is good, right?"

"You're right…and besides, I prefer to sleep in a comfortable bed instead of the Gummi Shop since we're going to stay here for a few days. I'm sure you agree with me there," said Riku with a hint of mischief and Sora started to get nervous, he didn't like where this conversation was going.

"W-what do you mean?" the brown-haired boy asked.

"Don't play dumb with me," Riku said. "I know that you're sleeping in the girls' dormitory of your guild."

Sora started to sweat and he almost panicked when Kairi suddenly broke the pencil with her thumb while writing.

"Sora…" the girl began but Riku continued talking.

"At first I couldn't believe what I heard, but when your master told me that you tried to refuse it was more credible," Riku said without removing the smile on his face. "However, I would have never guessed, you must be the luckiest boy in the universe."

"Please, come off it," Sora pleaded.

"And here I was," said Riku, continuing with his teasing, "thinking that you were a total sap. Maybe I could learn some things from you."

"I hope you haven't done anything funny, mister," said Kairi with a stern face before Sora could answer back.

"Of course not!" he exclaimed.

"Why are you so grumpy? You know that he isn't like that," Riku asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not grumpy, it's just…" Kairi didn't know what to say, but she had to admit that, for some reason, it bothered her a little that Sora was sleeping in a girls' dormitory, especially after seeing how "developed" were some girls of his guild. Even so, she knew that Sora wasn't a pervert so she apologized to the boy for her mistrust.

"It's okay, just let's forget about that," said the spiky boy and the girl continued marking the locations of the map with the half of the pencil that had the tip.

"I can't wait to see the faces of Wakka and Tidus when I told them this," said a smiling Riku. "Maybe I should tell Selphie, this way the whole island will know about it in no time."

"Hey, don't be a jerk!" Sora said.

"Okay, I'm done," Riku said and he turned to Kairi who stopped writing. "Did you finish?"

"Yes," answered the girl with a pout on her face, it was obvious that she cared about Sora's sleeping place, but the girl didn't want to say anything that could be misunderstood.

After taking a look at Fiore's map, the Keyblade Master was surprised that his best friends had already protected all those towns in just a week which worried him a bit.

"Sora," he began, "have you rested since you left the tower?"

"I think so…one or two days, why do you ask?" asked Sora puzzled.

"Look, we've been talking and now that we're here, you should have a day off," Riku said. "Let us take care of the Heartless for a day or two."

"Are you really asking me to shirk my duties?" asked Sora, who couldn't help but grin at what his friend said.

"It would be shirking your duties if you hadn't been doing anything this last week," Kairi spoke. "Sora, even you have your limits. Depend on us a bit more, okay?"

"You're saying it as if I always did things on my own," Sora commented and after thinking about it for a few seconds he sighed. "I guess I can leave the work to you for a while, but if I see a Heartless around I won't just stand with my arms crossed."

"Sure, just take it easy," Riku said patting his friend's back. "Our main objective would be to find the keyhole, besides it's likely that Pete will appear again so we should find it as soon as possible."

"All right, now that everything is settled, it's time to return to our respective guilds," Kairi said with determination.

Sora could tell that she was really excited since this was her first mission as a Keybearer. He was a bit worried, but if Riku let her come then it must be because he knows that she was ready. The girl stood up and went to where the Trimens were to tell them that she was ready to leave.

"You know, I thought you were going to be more…overprotective," Riku commented to Sora when the redhead girl was far enough that she couldn't hear him.

"You're the one who helped Kairi with her training," Sora replied. "If you think she's ready, then I think so too. Besides, she has already protected some small towns when she was on her way here so I don't think she will have any troubles."

"Oooh, you've matured," said Riku with a teasing voice that Sora didn't like.

"Hey, you've changed too," Sora retorted. "You used to be really…uptight."

"I guess I caught your silliness," the Keyblade Master joked and then, the two started to laugh.

It felt good to be joking around once in a while since they haven't seen each other for a couple of weeks. After laughing for a while, Sora looked at his best friend with a more serious expression which Riku noticed, but the spiky Keyblade wielder spoke before he could say anything.

"Did Yen Sid say something about what we're going to do?" Sora asked. "Does he have a plan or something?"

"Kind of," Riku replied. "He told me that when you return to the tower, he will explain us about our next mission, it looks like you will have to do something with Donald and Goofy while Mickey and I work on something else. That's all I know."

"I see…" muttered Sora.

"Are you worried?" asked Riku, who noticed the frown on Sora's face. "I've been thinking about it and I supposed that you would think about it too."

"It's just that I have the feeling that Xehanort is always one step ahead of us," Sora said. "And lately, the people I've met were in danger because of him, what if he decides to come here too?"

"Well, now you have Kairi and me to back you up if things get complicated, and don't forget about your team, they look really strong despite being a bit weird," Riku assured and Sora chuckled. "And, of course, you're much stronger than before, I'm sure that you won't have any troubles if one member of the New Organization decides to appear."

"Heh, I forgot about your reassuring speeches," Sora mentioned. "Thanks, Riku."

"No problem," he said as he stood up. "Well, Sherry is calling me so it's time to return to Lamia Scale."

"Sure, I'll tell you if I see Pete or Maleficent," said the brown-haired Keybearer following Riku, he wanted to say goodbye to his friends before they leave.

"Right," said Riku, "and remember, rest and try to clear up your mind…oh, and don't sneak up in the girls' rooms, okay?"

"If you don't stop, I'll hit you in the head," Sora warned.

The three friends said goodbye to each other before separating once again, this time they knew that they were in the same world so it wasn't a very emotional farewell. The people of Magnolia spent the rest of the day in cleaning the area where the festival and the duel took place. It was an event that most people won't forget easily, especially the eccentric reporter from Sorcerer Magazine.

* * *

The next morning, Sora woke up in his room at Fairy Hills, he expected to have a good sleep, knowing that his two closest friends were safe and in the same world as him, but thanks to Riku and his teasing, the spiky Keybearer was more nervous when he arrived at the dormitory last night. The sleepy boy wandered around the building, trying to wake up completely, and he walked near a room that looked like a library and Sora also saw the Solid Script Mage, who was organizing a huge amount of books. Sora thought that Levy could use some help so he went into the room and walked to where the bluenette was and it looked like she didn't notice him, she was just humming a song as she put the books on the shelf.

"Need a hand?" asked Sora which startled the girl and made her drop the book she had in her hand, but the Keybearer could catch the book before it touched the floor.

"Gee, don't scare me like that," Levy pouted and Sora laughed.

"I didn't mean to, but sorry for sneaking up," he said with his trademark grin, which caused most people to smile back and Levy wasn't an exception. "Say, you're the one in charge of this library?"

Levy giggled. "This isn't a library, it's my room," she said and Sora remembered instantly what Riku said yesterday about not sneaking up in the girls' rooms.

"Damn it…" he muttered with a grumpy face.

"Something wrong?" asked a curious Levy.

"It's nothing," Sora replied. "Sorry for get in here without permission."

"Oh, don't worry about it, but you should be more careful," Levy said while winking at the Keybearer. "So, if your offer to help me still stands, I will gladly accept it."

"Sure," Sora said and before starting, he took a look at the cover of the book that Levy dropped. "Ninjas of Love…what kind of-"

Suddenly Levy took the book from Sora's hands as soon as she heard him reading the title of it.

"L-leave this one to me," she said, shyly and with a small blush on her face while she tried to come up with something to change the topic. "Say, what kind of books do you like?"

"Me?" said Sora as he started to organize Levy's books. "I'm not much of a reader, but I guess that the adventure genre is the one I like the most."

"I should have guessed," said Levy after letting out a small laugh. "However, I'm sure that living your own adventure is better than reading it in some book."

"You said it," Sora agreed.

"Who knows, maybe someday Lucy will write a book about you," Levy commented.

"I don't know…wouldn't that mean that I will have to tell her everything about me?" asked the Keybearer.

"Oooh, there's something you don't want us to know?" asked Levy in a playful way.

"Maybe, but I'm not telling you, so don't insist," Sora said.

"What? Am I that unreliable to you?" asked Levy.

Sora started to laugh. "What nonsense is that?" he said and then Levy hit him lightly on the head with the spine of a book.

"Don't mock me," Levy said a bit annoyed, but Sora could see a small smile on her face so he knew that she wasn't upset.

"That's what you get for being nosy," Sora joked and Levy hit him again. "Okay, okay, I'll stop, don't Levy-Chop me again."

After half an hour, the two teens finished organizing all the books so Sora left Levy's room after she thanked him for his help.

Sora was still a bit drowsy, fortunately he remembered that behind the building there was a very quiet grassed area which could be the perfect place to take a nap, however, before he could reach the exit of the dormitory, Sora ran into Bisca, the woman who uses Guns Magic in Fairy Tail. It looks like she heard that Sora helped Levy with some of her chores, so she asked the boy if he could help her too and Sora didn't refuse and later, Evergreen asked the Keyblade wielder for help too.

The spiky boy ended up organizing books, taking care of some animals that Bisca had in her room and moving a lot of heavy statues from Evergreen's room. Sora ended up exhausted, but he could reach the area that was outside Fairy Hills, it was really peaceful and the weather was nice, perfect to take a quick nap and so did he.

When Sora woke up, the first thing he saw was the tree that was in the area where he slept and he was glad since it covered the sun and the light couldn't blind him. He felt really rested, it has been a long time since he had such a good nap and besides, after helping some of the girls with their chores he got even more tired so he really needed this. Sora stretched his arms and when he dropped his right arm, instead of touching the grass, he hit something.

"Ow," said someone and Sora turned his head to see that Wendy was at his right, lying on the ground as well. Luckily, he hit the girl's forehead lightly but it was enough to wake her up.

"Wendy?" asked Sora surprised.

"Hello, Sora-san," said the drowsy bluenette as he rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"Hey, sleepyhead, did you sleep well?" asked Sora playfully and Wendy blushed and smiled embarrassedly. "Why were you sleeping at my side?"

"W-well, you looked really calm and relaxed, so we wanted to try it too," Wendy answered shyly.

"Did you say 'we'?" asked Sora and Wendy nodded and pointed at Sora's left. This time the boy turned his head to the left and saw Erza, who was sleeping peacefully and the Keybearer had to admit that she looked cute, despite being so fierce when she was awake. Suddenly the young woman opened her eyes which startled the Keyblade wielder and made him look away.

"Oh, you're awake," Erza said as she sat on the ground and then a smile appeared on her face. "I see that it was true that you could sleep in any place."

"_So Kairi was indeed talking about me to you yesterday, huh?_" Sora thought. "I remind you that you were also sleeping on the ground."

"Well, I admit that you found a good place to take a nap," Erza said, slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, how are you?"

"I'm fine, why do you ask?" said Sora, confused by her question.

"I thought you would be a bit sad because Riku and Kairi left," Erza replied.

"Nah, don't worry, actually I'm calmer now that I know they're in this world," Sora assured. "Besides, with the fight I had yesterday, I'm more than satisfied."

"Oh, yes, you were amazing!" Wendy said.

"No doubt," Erza added. "It really surprised us when you started to use two Keyblades at the same time."

"Oh, that? I can dual wield easily," Sora said as he summoned the Kingdom Key and the Oblivion at the same time which surprised the two girls. "For some reason, it has become easier to do it lately."

"What do you mean?" asked the redhead Mage.

"You see, these clothes are magic," began Sora while pointing at his outfit, "and thanks to them I could use new abilities or even use one more sword. The only drawback is that I needed to use the power of two of my friends, although I tried to activate it on my own some weeks ago and I almost made it. It would be really useful to have those abilities as a backup."

"So it's like my Ex-quip Magic!" said Erza excitedly.

"Yeah, you could say that," Sora said.

"Can you show us, please?" Wendy asked and Erza agreed immediately.

"Do you really want to see it?" Sora asked and they nodded. "Well, now that I remember, there was one that I could use on my own. All right, I'll show you!"

Sora got on his feet with a jump and he moved away from Wendy and Erza a little. They thought that Sora was going to need some time to activate his clothes' powers, but he barely needed more than ten seconds. First a crystal sphere surrounded the boy and his clothes started to glow, then the sphere broke and his outfit changed into the same colors and style of the clothes he wore during his first journey.

"Amazing!" exclaimed Wendy while Erza studied the Keybearer.

"It's incredible," she said. "What's the difference between this outfit and the one you usually wear?"

"I can't use magic, but some of my special attacks are more powerful," Sora explained and he reversed the Limit Form after a few seconds.

"I'm surprised that you can use this kind of magic," Erza said, "I guess there are still some things that we don't know about you."

"It's pretty neat isn't it? However I can't use it very often since it can wear me out quite quickly," Sora said. "_Besides, I wouldn't like them to see what happen if I use the Drive Forms with frequency_."

"Talking about getting tired," Erza said. "I just remembered that we wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" said the Keybearer.

"We wanted to take a little vacation," Wendy said. "There's a spa town near a beach and we thought that it would be a good idea to go, what do you say? It would be nice to relax for a couple of days."

"Did Riku put you up to this?" Sora asked, knowing that his friend would do something like this, although, for some reason, now he really wanted to go to the beach Erza mentioned, as if something inside the boy told him that he must go there no matter what.

"How did you…" Erza was surprised that Sora found out that the Keyblade Master told them to make sure that Sora took a break from fighting the Heartless.

"It was kind of obvious," Sora told her. "Anyway, I think it's a great idea, you can count me in."

"Great, I'll tell the others that you're coming when I see them," Erza said, happy to see that Sora liked the idea.

"Who else is coming?" asked the spiky boy.

"Natsu, Lucy, Gray, Happy and Carla," Erza replied. "And I think that Levy, Jet and Droy are also coming."

"The whole band, huh?" said Sora. "I'm sure that we're going to have a good time."

"I'm looking forward to it," Erza said smiling. "Maybe we could take a bath together in the hot springs."

"Whoa, what are you saying, Erza!?" Sora exclaimed with his face all red while Wendy just looked away, obviously embarrassed as well.

"What? You don't need to be shy, we're comrades after all," Erza said nonchalantly.

"There's a huge wall between being comrades and taking a bath together!" Sora exclaimed.

"You think? I used to get into the bath with Natsu and Gray all the time," Erza continued talking as if she were saying something normal.

"…" Sora didn't know what to say, he wasn't sure if Erza was serious or just joking.

* * *

**All right, it was about time for another chapter, sorry for the long wait. Thanks for all the ideas you guys left in your reviews, I saw that some of you wanted the Drive Forms to appear so I gave them a little introduction here and I'll use them in future battles. I liked the idea of a spa/beach vacation that DragonDude23 mentioned so I'll start with that for now, thanks pal. I also saw that you wanted Riku and Kairi to discover Sora's sleeping place so, here you go (you guys are evil).**

**On the other hand, I'm sure that you guys saw the announcement of KH II.5 HD Remix, I'm really excited since, despite having played KH II FM, I've never played Birth By Sleep completely so I'm looking forward to it.**

**And, of course, I've also watched the gameplay trailer of KH III and it was amazing! For those who have read my crossover between KH and Soul Eater, probably you remember that Sora used two guns in a chapter so when I saw that he did the same in the trailer I was speechless.**


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